









iga^:^sss^^^;- 



THE MAN OF UZ. 



LESSONS FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS FROM 
THE LIFE OF AN ANCIENT SAINT. 



BY THE 

Rev. S. a. MARTIN, 

PROFESSOR OF HOMILETICS, LINCOLN UNIVERSITY. 



" Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom." 

Job 28 : 28. 

OF co.v 






Vn^.^fi^'V/V 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PEESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



,ri3 



COPYKIGHT, 1891, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OP THE 

PEESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 



All Rights Reserved, 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers and Electrotypers^ Philada. 



TO THE 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETIES OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 



THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



AS A TOKEN OF 



ADMIEATION AND HOPE. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEK I. 

PAGE 

A Gentleman of the Old School 7 



CHAPTER II. 
Satan at the Coukt of Heaven 22 

CHAPTER III. 
Satan Let Loose 36 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Heroism of Endurance 50 

CHAPTER y. 
An Ancient Creed 67 



CHAPTER VI. 

Mysterious Providence 83 

6 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK VII. 

PAGE 

The Young Man's Views 104 

CHAPTEE VIII. 
Out of the Whirlwind 120 



THE MAN OF TJZ. 



CHAPTER I. 

A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 

" A perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and 
escheweth evil.'^ 

"IVTO man knows who wrote the book called Job, 
-^^ or who Job was, or where or when he lived. 
Of unknown date and authorship, it is the most 
catholic of books. It is a great world-drama un- 
trammelled by time or place or other accident ; it tells 
of an experience which in all of its essential features 
might be yours or mine or any man^s. It never 
loses its interest, because it treats of questions that 
are as old as human history and as common as 
human tears. 

Like some grand oratorio composed by an un- 
known master, its harmonies resound in every age, 
sublime and sweet, for they are true to the chords 
of human feeling. 



8 THE MAN OF TJZ. 

It Is, beyond all doubt, a gem of rarest beauty, 
and it does not concern us greatly to know who 
digged it from the mine of truth, who gave to it 
such literary polish or who fixed it in its sacred 
setting in the word of God. 

We take the book up simply as the book takes 
up its hero, without a word about his genealogy or 
race or time or place in history ; simply, '^ There 
was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was 
Job,^^ and then proceeding straight away to tell us 
of his character and his experience. 

His character is very briefly but sufficiently de- 
scribed in a single sentence : " He feared God and 
eschewed evil.^^ This is the root of the matter. 
If you know what a man fears — that is, holds in 
reverence and love — you know the main line of his 
life and thought and action, for out of the heart are 
the issues of life. 

Job was perfect and upright because he feared 
God and eschewed evil. This was the bed-rock on 
which he built his character, and because it had 
this rock foundation it fell not when the floods of 
tribulation came. 

Job^s greatness rested chiefly on this : the fear of 
God. This is the fundamental thought that under- 
lies the whole book. As the fundamental air runs 



A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 9 

through some great oratorio, never lost even amid 
the most elaborate and varied harmonies, so in this 
book we find in all the agonized distress of the 
bereaved and broken-hearted hero, in all his lofty 
disquisitions on the magnificence of God^s creation 
and in all his pondering on the mysteries of Provi- 
dence this simple creed recurring : " Behold the fear 
of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from 
evil is understanding/^ This was the one thing 
which Job believed and held to when all else seem- 
ed unreliable. This was the one thing which could 
not be shaken, and which remained when the Lord 
shook not the earth only, but the very heavens. 

What, then, is this ''fear of God'' which God 
saw in Job, and, seeing, commended; which Job 
clung to with such unwavering faith when all else 
seemed hopeless ruin ? It Avas not the dread and 
terror which spring from a guilty conscience : far 
from that. It was nothing akin to that fright 
which evil-doers feel at every thought of a right- 
eous God to whom each one must give account of 
himself. It was, first of all, an unwavering con- 
fidence that God reigneth, and that he doeth all 
things well. From this conviction flowed that deep 
and solemn reverence which bows in awe before 
Him who is clothed with majesty and girded about 



10 THE MAN OF UZ. 

with might. It was a deep and earnest sense of 
personal responsibility to a personal and holy God. 

This is the kind of fear that lies at the founda- 
tion of all noble character. There is no more im- 
portant truth in all the v/orld than this, that a great, 
deep, earnest reverence for the realities of life and a 
profound conviction that God rules is the very first 
essential of true human greatness. Nothing in the 
world so certainly and utterly destroys all possi- 
bility of wise and graceful manhood as a frivolous 
and irreverent habit of mind, a flippant, pert and 
brainless skepticism. There is a kind of doubt that 
is akin to reverence. It is the serious perplexity of 
men who search for truth and wisdom ; who stand, 
as Job stood, looking out upon this world, of which 
the most sublime and awful contents are but a whis- 
per of God's power. They stand astonished at the 
vastness of life's problems, and confess with Job, 
" These things are too wonderful for me.'' This 
kind of doubt the Lord respects. 

But there is a much more common kind of skep- 
ticism, which is as far removed from this as hell 
is from heaven. It is shallow, thoughtless, insin- 
cere. Its chief employment is the ridicule of sacred 
things which great men of every creed and every 
age meditate upon with awe. It dismisses with 



A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL, 11 

a silly joke themes which wise men ponder with 
reverence and deep humility. It answers with a 
sneer the counsels of experience and age ; and, most 
contemptible of all, it scoffs at a mother^s faith and 
despises a father's prayers. 

The young man who affects the airs of this kind 
of skepticism, and, with a little smattering of 
science, less of history and none of philosophy, 
and an insignificant experience of life in any of its 
deeper phases, sets up as an oracle and critic, and 
poses before the mirror of his own conceit as the 
type and embodiment of progress and advanced 
thought, is perhaps the most petty and the most 
utterly contemptible style of fool that now afflicts 
this weary world. 

The utter drivel which these fellows pour upon 
us from the novel, story, essay or daily editorial 
is one of the most humiliating proofs that in spite 
of all our boasting the progress of the world in wis- 
dom is a very slow and tedious matter. 

The truth is, man is a very small creature in a 
very great universe. On every hand we are con- 
fronted with problems whose vastness we can but 
faintly conceive and on whose practical solution the 
welfare of millions depends. More and more the 
study of nature and history is revealing the tre- 



12 THE MAN OF UZ. 

mendous sweep of principles and laws which are 
the Fates of modern thought. More and more we 
realize the truth that the free action of to-day will 
crystallize over-night and be our destiny to-morrow. 

^^ Lo these are the outskirts of his ways, but how 
small a whisper do we hear of him ; the thunder 
of his power who can understand ?^^ 

All true appreciation of the great and beautiful 
will lead toward greatness in ourselves. A deep 
respect for that which is, an honest love of truth 
and hatred of all sham and pretence and lies, is not 
in itself greatness or goodness, but it is the first step 
toward both. 

This fear of God, this confidence in him who 
reigneth, this solemn reverence for truth and right- 
eousness, was the distinguishing mark of Job's 
character on its Godward side. This was the atti- 
tude of his soul toward what is high and sacred. 
The sinward side was the antithesis of this : '^ He 
eschewed evil.'' 

The word eschew was formerly the same as 
shun, and it means nearly the same thing, but is 
more emphatic. The figure that is in the word is 
that of a horse " shying" at a dangerous or doubt- 
ful object. To eschew evil means not merely to 
keep from open acts of wickedness, but to shun it, 



A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 13 

to " shy '^ at even the suggestion of it. Evil is not 
a thing to be trifled with. You do not, unless you 
are a fool, trifle with small-pox or mad dogs or 
rattlesnakes. It is more dangerous to trifle with 
sin than with these ; you may charm the snake, you 
may escape the most deadly and contagious disease 
and be none the worse for the risk you ran, but you 
cannot come in contact with sin and escape unhurt. 
You cannot dabble in sin without soiling your soul. 
It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity ; sin is 
in its very nature a defiling and a deadly thing. 
The only safe rule is the old rule : '^ Enter not into 
the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of 
evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, 
and pass away.^^ 

This first verse gives us the key to the whole of 
Job's character. He was perfect because his heart 
was right with God. 

It is ever so : permanently good character can 
grow only out of a pure and honest heart. We 
hear much of the influence of '' environment,'^ and 
environment has very much to do with the de- 
velopment of character, as the soil and season have 
very much to do with the development of the fruit 
in your garden ; but men do not ^^ gather grapes of 
thorns nor figs of thistles,'^ even in the best of sea- 



14 THE MAN OF UZ. 

sons ; no more can right affections and right moral 
principles originate in the environment or circum- 
stances of any man. 

Job^s environment was favorable. In his cir- 
cumstances Job was greatly blessed. God had 
made a hedge about him, and about his house, and 
about all that he had on every side ; he had greatly 
blessed the work of his hands, and his substance 
w^as increased in the land. As it is true that our 
circumstances have much to do with the forming 
of our character, so it is true that God by his wise 
providence determines our circumstances. The point 
which Satan raised was not whether Job's environ- 
ment was favorable, for that is admitted, but whether 
it was not the sole cause of his piety. 

Let us see just how much of Job's character was 
due to his favorable circumstances. 

His wealth and high position gave him oppor- 
tunities of noble conduct which men in humbler 
circumstances do not have; these opportunities, 
well improved, became the means of greater grace 
and higher culture than he could have reached 
without them. He had been intrusted with many 
talents, and his faithful use of them gave him just 
claim to many honors. ^' To him that hath shall 
be given.'' This is the law of nature, as well as of 



A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 15 

grace. As his goodness made his wealth a blessing, 
so his wealth gave means of increasing his good- 
ness by doing good. As his prosperity gave lustre 
to his piety^ so his piety gave dignity to his wealth. 
The expression " poor but pious ^^ is so largely over- 
used that we too often get the impression that suc- 
cess in business and integrity of heart are incom- 
patible ; that to be pious one must needs be poor. 
This is not the teaching of Scripture or of experience. 
Wealth is a form of power which^ if rightly used, 
may greatly strengthen and develop godline-ss in 
character. It is the love of money that is a root 
of all evil ; it is the greed of gain that starves the 
nobler affections of the man ; and it is the danger 
of pride and arrogance growing out of riches that 
led Agur, like a prudent man, to pray, '' Give me 
neither poverty nor riches.'^ But wealth with 
grace to use it is a blessing, for it gives opportuni- 
ties of benefaction and influence for good. It is 
doubtless easier to be faithful in the use of two 

1 talents than in the use of five; but he that was 
faithful with the five received the greater reward. 
Here are some of the ways Job used these talents 
of wealth : 

He did not eat his portion alone, and let the 
fatherless go hungry. 



16 THE MAN OF UZ. 

He did not dwell in his luxury while the poor 
were without covering. They lodged in his house, 
and they were warmed with the fleece of his sheep. 

He w^as patient as well as just with his servant, 
for he said, " the same God made us both f both 
were liable to err ; both must seek for mercy, and 
not justice only. 

He was not haughty on account of his wealth, 
nor did he make gold his confidence. 

He was ^^ given to hospitality,^^ and gentle to 
those inferior to him in place and power. 

On the other hand, he scorned to seek popularity 
at the cost of dignity or justice; the adverse criti- 
cism and rebukes of his friends could not drive him 
from his loyalty to his own conscience. I cannot 
imagine a more complete picture of dignified and 
noble manhood than this. 

But this is not all. He was not only a noble 
man, a kind neighbor, a generous master and a 
faithful friend, but also a kind and sympathetic 
father. We are told that '' children are an heritage 
from God,^^ and there is no more accursed infidelity 
than the modern unbelief of this. 

Job's family is mentioned first, as chiefest of his 
blessings, and so he seems to have regarded them. 
He mentions it as one of the joys of his prosperous 



A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 17 

days that his children were about him. And they 
were not only about him, but they seem to have 
been a congenial family. The fact that they went 
md feasted in each other^s houses is not a matter 
of much importance in itself, but it is doubtless 
mentioned because of what it implies. It implies 
harmony and good- will. '' Behold how good and 
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in 
unity.^^ Still more is implied in the fact that they 
sent for their sisters to eat and drink with them. 
The presence of ladies is mostly a good guarantee 
that a feast will not be a drunken revel, and the 
presence of our sisters is never asked when we have 
anything on hand that we are ashamed of. There 
is no better test than this. It is a very bad sign 
when a young man does not want his sisters present 
where he wants to go himself. Any place of enter- 
tainment where you do not w^ish to see your sister 
is no fit place for you. It is not said that Job took 
part in these festivities himself, but he seems to 
have given considerable thought to them. The 
care he exercised over the spiritual welfare of his 
sons is the most beautiful evidence of his own piety. 
A good man will make his children's welfare, espe- 
cially their spiritual welfare, his first consideration. 
We cannot bequeath our piety as a legacy to our 



18 THE MAN OF UZ. 

children ; we cannot regenerate them ; but we can 
do a great deal to shield them from temptation and 
to develop in them sound manly principles by bring- 
ing them up in a clean and wholesome moral atmo- 
sphere ; and no considerations of business or ambition 
can justify us in taking risks in a matter so vital as 
the welfare of our own children. Alas, that any 
one should need exhortation to this duty ! but the 
utter recklessness with w^hich men, in pursuit of 
gain, take their sons and daughters into the most 
dangerous influences, at the time of life when char- 
acter most easily receives impressions from without, 
is one of the most crying evils of the day. Job was 
thoughtful for his children. He had reason for 
good hopes concerning them, but that was not 
enough to satisfy a faithful father ; he provides, as 
far as he can, against the possibility of evil. " And 
it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone 
about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose 
up early in the morning, and offered burnt offer- 
ings according to the number of them all : for Job 
said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and 
cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job con- 
tinually.^^ 

Here is an admirable practicable treatment of a 
problem that has occupied the mind of every 



A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL, 19 

thoughtful parent from Job^s day to ours — 
namely, How shall our children have good times 
and not be the worse for it ? We all know that 
gay rounds of festive pleasures, even though they 
be the most innocent attainable, have a very strong 
tendency to crowd out serious thoughts and sadly 
interfere with spiritual growth. 

Job met the case this way : he did not say, 
^^ There is danger in all such festivities ; my sons 
must therefore give them up;'^ nor did he say, 
with careless tone, ^^ Oh, let them go while they are 
young ; they will grow old and sober soon enough/^ 
I believe the devil invented that saying. No; he 
kept in fullest sympathy with them in their fes- 
tivity, but took good care, in due time, to turn their 
minds again to serious things. He did not intrude 
the solemn exercises of religious worship on their 
hours of amusement — there is a time for all things 
— but when the feasting was over the good father 
called them to serious thoughts and the solemn ser- 
vice of religious worship. 

There is a time to laugh and a time to pray, and 
a little more thoughtfulness and consideration for 
the fitness of times and places would make our 
laugh more merry and our prayers more fervent, 
to the great improvement of them both. 



20 THE MAN OF UZ. 

Job used the ordinances of his time ; he offered 
a special sacrifice for each one of his children. This 
he did continually, and was commended for so doing. 
There are men now who would say to Job, " You 
make a great mistake; any religious service per- 
formed in that habitual way is likely to become a 
mere formality ; see what a perfunctory matter 
family worship becomes when made a part of the 
daily routine of duty ?' But Job was not the kind 
of man to be deceived by any such plausible non- 
sense. He knew from his own experience that 
regular and stated times for religious service is a 
matter of great importance. Nothing is well done 
w^hen left to mere impulse and convenience. When 
we become irregular in our attendance on the means 
of grace, public, social or private, we are already in 
poor health spiritually. The man who has a good 
appetite was never yet heard to complain of the 
monotony of three regular meals each day. 

" Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, .... 
but remember,^^ says the wise man. Remember 
that just beyond the days of youth there are days 
of manhood, days that will call for all your strength 
and wisdom, days that are full of opportunities of 
all true greatness. You will need all the sacred 
influences you can have to fit you well for those 



A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 21 

good days. Then there is above all this^ beyond 
the things that are seen and temporal, the region of 
eternal verity, a personal God of infinite majesty 
and love. He has a plan and purpose for you, a 
destiny right glorious and excellent. Remember, 
O young man, remember this. 

" The best is yet to be 

The last of life, for which the first was made : 
Our times are in His hand 
Who saith, ' A whole I planned ; 

Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all, nor be afraid." 



CHAPTER II. 

SATAN AT THE COURT OF HEAVEN. 

" Now there was a day when the sons of God came to pre- 
sent themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among 
them.'' 

rpiHE word "Satan" signifies the adversary. The 
■^ evil spirit to whom this name is given is pre- 
eminently the one adverse to man. He is adverse 
to every human interest. He is the arch-enemy, 
the seducer and traducer of our race and of each 
soul. He was a murderer from the beginning, and 
abode not in the truth. We are therefore shocked 
to find him here presenting himself at the court of 
Heaven among the sons of God. And not only does 
he come into the presence of the Lord, but he pre- 
ssents himself as one who has some right to come. 
There is an assurance about his manner that seems 
to imply a certain claim to recognition. He reports 
his " going to and fro in the earth, and walking up 
and down in it'^ as if it were an employment allow- 
ed, if not assigned to him. The Lord talks with 
him concerning Job as a king might talk with his 

22 



SATAN AT THE COURT OF HEAVEN. 23 

minister concerning the affairs of a province. But 
it seems still more surprising to find that the Lord 
gives him permission to go and exercise all his ma- 
lignant powers against the man who " feared God 
and eschewed evil/^ He is allowed to strip Job of 
all that he possessed, and afterward his license is 
extended that he might afflict him in body and 
mind^ forbidden only to take his life. It is indeed 
startling to read that '' the Lord said unto Satan, 
Behold, he is in thine hand ; but save his life/^ The 
Lord puts a perfect and an upright man into the 
hands of the arch-enemy, to be afflicted, tormented 
and abused to the utmost limit of living endurance. 
This representation of Satan and his relation to 
God is sometimes explained as being the imperfect 
conception of the author of this ancient book. We 
are told that the doctrines of demonology were not 
fully developed at the time this book was written, 
and that we have to read what is here represented 
in the fuller, clearer light of the teaching of the 
New Testament. We are warned to be careful not 
to impose on Job the conceptions belonging to a 
later and more advanced period. All this is true 
in a sense, but rather misleading. It is doubtless 
true that the New Testament gives fuller knowledge 
on this, as on all other doctrines, than is given in 



24 THE MAN OF UZ. 

the Old Testament ; but, on the other hand, It is 
true that nowhere in Scripture do we have so com- 
plete a picture of Satan and of his relations to 
God as we have here. Nor do we anywhere 
find his ^^ great might and deep guile ^^ so clearly 
revealed. 

We have no right to say that an author's knowl- 
edge is imperfect if all that he has any occasion to 
say is accurately said. It would be folly to argue 
that because a man has written a history of Asia 
therefore he knows nothing of Europe. It is equal 
folly to conclude that the author of the book of Job 
held imperfect notions of Satan because he does not 
mention all that we find in later books. A good 
deal of what we are told of the development of doc- 
trine is of this sort. 

The fact that excites remark here is that Satan is 
represented as the servant rather than the enemy of 
God. He has access to his presence ; he brings an 
accusation against a saint, and receives permission 
to afflict him, so that it can be said with equal truth 
that " Satan smote Job," or " the Lord hath taken 
away.'^ 

This strikes us as remarkable ; but the author of 
this book sees nothing remarkable in it ; at least, 
he states it as the most natural thing in the world. 



SATAN AT THE COURT OF HEAVEN, 25 

We are surprised because we have not thought very 
deeply about it. Our surprise will disappear, if I 
mistake not, when we ask ourselves, What else can 
Satan be but the servant of God ? If God be om- 
nipotent and sovereign, Satan cannot act but by his 
high permission. The notion of an eternal prin- 
ciple or power of evil warring against the good is 
utterly foreign to Scripture, old or new. It may 
seem strange, but it is certainly true, that Satan 
is as dependent on God as we are. Neither man 
nor devil lives one moment but by God's all-animat- 
ing breath. 

Satan comes into God's presence because he can 
do nothing else : there is no corner in this vast uni- 
verse where he may hide from his sovereign, no 
realm where he may dwell and be forgotten. He 
must say, even as we say, '' Whither shall I go 
from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy 
presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art 
there ; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art 
there/' 

But we are told that this appearance of Satan at 
the court of Heaven is merely a dramatic figure, a 
poetic image not to be taken literally. Of course 
this is poetry, and of course it is not to be taken 
literally ; but it is not any the less strictly accurate 



26 THE MAN OF VZ, 

as a statement of truth. We are no more at liberty 
to reject the teaching of poetry than we are to re- 
ject that of prose. The habit of reading into the 
words of Scripture any meaning which those words 
are capable of conveying in any circumstances is a 
common but deplorable means of falsifying Scrip- 
ture. When Christ said, '' I am the vine, ye are 
the branches/^ he taught a wonderful truth just as 
distinctly as when he said, ^^ If ye love me, keep 
my commandments.'^ And we have no more right 
to shift the meaning of the one passage than we 
have to reject the teaching of the other. 

The essential matter here is briefly this : God is 
Sovereign ; Satan may not touch Job, nor the least 
of his possessions, without distinct permission from 
the Lord. He may afflict and tempt and harass 
the children of men, but only so far as God's good 
purposes allow. This representation of Satan's re- 
lation to God is not only in harmony with the latest 
revelation that we have on the subject, but it is the 
latest ; we have nothing beyond this. 

But Satan, though the servant of God, is none 
the less Satan — the adversary. The charge which 
he brings against Job has three marks of Satanic 
origin : it is false, it is malignant, it is cynical. 
" He is a liar from the beo^innino; and the father 



SATAN AT THE COURT OF HEAVEN. 27 

of it/^ He is wonderfully skillful in the use of all 
the vile arts of falsehood^ deceit and insincerity. It 
is well to iknow the marks of Satan^s authorship^ as 
it is well to know the marks of poisonous weeds 
and deadly serpents. The " higher criticism ^^ that 
will teach us all to recognize the hand of Satan in 
what we read and hear will be a useful science. 

His lies are very plausible ; they much resemble 
truth^ and have moreover a show of shrewdness. 
They are skillfully compounded^ containing a fair 
amount of pleasant truth and but one drop of the 
poison of error, but that poison is deadly. The first 
lie that ever defiled the air of Paradise was his as- 
sertion to our first parents in the garden of Eden. 
'' Ye shall not surely die/^ said he, " for God doth 
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then shall your 
eyes be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing 
good and evil.^^ And mankind has found, when 
too late, that the deadly falsehood lay in words that 
were, in one sense, true : their eyes were opened ; 
they did indeed know good and evil. Alas, the 
evil we have known from that first disobedience ! 
We, whom God would have to know but good, 
know evil much more intimately ; not as the gods, 
but as the devils know it. To our Saviour the 
Tempter quotes Scripture with the same subtle 



28 THE MAN OF UZ, 

plausibility. So here^ in the very court of Heaven, 
he brings an accusation against God's servant with 
such an appearance of shrewd insight into character 
that men who pride themselves on their superior 
knowledge of mankind repeat it as a maxim of their 
political philosophy in the phrase, " Every man has 
his price/^ Satan said, ^^Doth Job fear God for 
nought ? Hast not thou made a hedge about him, 
and about his house, and about all that he hath on 
every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his 
hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 
But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that 
he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.'' How 
plausible it sounds ! how often we hear it, almost 
word for word, from the bitter lips of cynical and 
sneering critics who boast of their keen insight into 
the secret motives of the human heart ! But it is 
the devil's doctrine ; it has the trail of the serpent 
upon it for ever. 

Men say, '' There is a good deal of truth in it." 
Certainly there is ; there is much truth in all of 
Satan's lies. He is the most expert and crafty 
of liars. He is no such unskilled novice in the 
art of deception as to offer us that which does 
not even look like truth. A counterfeit coin is 
dangerous just in proportion to its close resemblance 



SATAN AT THE COURT OF HEAVEN. 29 

to the genuine ; so every lie must wear a mask of 
truth or no one is deceived. 

Satan does not say that Job is a hypocrite : that 
was a coarse and clumsy charge brought by his 
angry friends. Satan is much more subtle and 
malignant : he admits the facts, but impugns his 
motives. He does not question the statement that 
Job is perfect and upright so far as conduct is con- 
cerned, but he attributes it all to selfishness. He 
seems to say, and to sneer as he says it, " True, Job 
does well, very well indeed, and he would be a 
great fool to do anything else ; what could he do 
that will pay him as well as this piety ? It is, I 
fancy, rather easy to be pious on his income, and 
whatever sacrifice he makes is very well rewarded. 
Even a dog will fawn upon the hand that feeds him. 
Job is pious for profit; stop his wages, and you 
will see that it is so ; he will renounce you openly.^^ 
Such was Satan's first accusation. God, for some 
good purpose, gives him permission to put Job to 
the test. Calamity after calamity falls upon him, 
till he is stripped of all he owned and bereft of all 
his children ; unmerciful disaster pursues him, like 
unrelenting fate, till he is childless, penniless and 
forsaken, naked as when he was born. 

But the adversary is foiled. "Job arose, and 



30 THE MAN OF UZ. 

rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down 
upon the ground, and worshiped, and said. Naked 
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall 
I return thither : the Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord/' 

Such a test would seem sufficient, but Satan's 
malice is insatiable. His hatred of the perfect man 
is only inflamed by the proof of his integrity. 
Again he appears in the court of Heaven, not to 
confess defeat and ask forgiveness for his abuse of 
Job : far from that. He comes to repeat his ac- 
cusation and to ask for license to afflict and torture 
Job still further. With devilish ingenuity he 
argues that the test he was permitted to make was 
quite inadequate to the case ; it did not touch Job 
close enough ; the root of his selfish service was not 
reached, could not be reached, without striking Job 
himself. " Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath 
will he give for his life.'^ He seems to urge that 
Job is still enduring in hope of reward. True, 
he has lost all, but he knows that God is able to 
give him greater things again. In short. Job is 
patient now for reward, just as he was pious for 
reward before ; destroy that hope, and then we will 
have a true test ; then we will see, as I said before, 
that he will renounce you openly. Such was the 



SATAN AT THE COURT OF HEAVEN. 31 

final accusation which the adversary laid against 
this ancient saint in the court of Heaven. How 
plausible it is ! "' His hidden craft is matchless/^ 

It is true that Job will lose nothing by his pa- 
tient faith. '' God is a rewarder of them that dili- 
gently seek him.^^ How then can it be proved that 
godliness is ever anything more than enlightened 
selfishness ? How, indeed, but by proof-test ? This 
is, therefore, a subtle defamation of all piety and 
godliness; one that has been repeated by devilish 
tongues in every age. But it is even more than 
this : it is an impious challenge against God him- 
self. It amounts to this, that there is no such 
thing as sincere, disinterested goodness in the 
world — that even God^s love and kindness can 
inspire in man nothing higher than a mercenary 
allegiance. If Satan is right, if " every man has 
his price,^^ and selfishness is the fundamental ruling 
principle in all men, then there is no real virtue in 
the world, and God\s effort to win our devotion and 
our love is a failure. 

If this were only a question of Job's integrity, 
or of the integrity of any one man, it would be of 
comparatively little importance. But it is a living 
question. The devil and his agents have not ceased 
to teach this doctrine, and many a poor soul is en- 



32 THE MAN OF UZ. 

snared by this device. It is a common thing to 
hear men try to palliate, if not excuse, their selfish- 
ness by this Satanic cry, "All men are just the 
same.'^ So powerful is the tendency to measure 
our own righteousness by the character of our 
neighbor that nothing will so soon corrupt the 
conscience and make a man ready to be dishonest 
as the belief that others are dishonest also. No 
doctrine is more thoroughly devilish and full of 
mischief than the teaching that all virtue is sham, 
all honesty mere policy and all piety hypocrisy. 
This doctrine is the more dangerous because there 
is so much apparent truth in it. There is so much 
sham and insincerity in the world that we are often 
ready in our haste to say, as David said in his haste, 
"All men are liars.^^ But it is to the honor of 
humanity that it can be said that this accusation 
of Satan against humanity is false. Not only did 
Job prove that there is, in some men at least, a 
noble devotion to righteousness that is stronger 
than the love of self, but history is full of evidence 
against this doctrine of the devil. Many a man 
has given up his life rather than his honor ; many 
have died rather than be cowards or traitors. The 
martyrs, that noble army whom the whole world 
delights to honor, — what are they but witnesses, 



SATAN AT THE COURT OF HEAVEN. 33 

living witnesses^ in heaven, testifying by their very- 
presence there that there have been multitudes to 
whom life was sweet, but duty sweeter ? The com- 
mon excuse for sin, that " a man must live/^ is the 
whine of the coward and the shirk ; men, true men, 
in every age have scorned to put honor in the bal- 
ance against life. Their motto is, " Quit you like 
men, be strong.^^ 

But if we would know how false Satan's estimate 
of man is, we may compare it with the estimate 
which was put on us by Him who "knew what 
was in man/' Satan says man is thoroughly and 
supremely selfish; pay him well enough and he 
will be pious as you wish ; but he has his price ; 
honor and virtue and loyalty are always in the 
market ; they can all be bought if you pay 
enough. 

This picture of us is like a skillfully drawn 
caricature : it has so strong a resemblance to the 
truth that we may not be able to say where the 
false lines are, but that it is not true becomes evi- 
dent the moment we brinp; it side bv side with the 
true portrait drawn by the Master. Then we see 
that it is totally and meanly false. The meek and 
lowly Man of Nazareth knows man better, infinitely 
better, than the sneering fiend, and yet Jesus of 



34 THE MAN OF UZ, 

Nazareth thought man was worth redeeming with 
his own divine blood. None know so well as he 
the sad depths to which we have fallen, but in his 
pity there is no contempt ; in all his rebukes there 
is never a sneer. He who created us in the image 
of God saw the traces of that image even in the 
publicans and harlots to whom he brought the 
gospel of forgiveness and hope. You remember 
Elijah^s cry of despair, " I only am left/^ and God\s 
reply, " I have seven thousand in Israel.^^ 

You remember also the command of Christ to 
begin the preaching of the gospel in elerusalem. 
All worldly wisdom would say, " That is a great 
mistake. Better go to some place where the people 
are not so violently prejudiced against the gospel; 
it is certain that these people of Jerusalem will 
never turn to Christ.^^ Nevertheless the command 
was given, the gospel of remission of sins was 
preached in prejudiced Jerusalem, and, to our 
amazement, a great cry is heard on the lips of 
thousands, ^^What shall we do?^^ and there were 
added to the Church about tliree thousand souls in 
a single day. 

Pessimism is of the devil ; to grow discouraged 
is human. Jesus Christ has given us a gospel of 
abounding hope, a hope that maketh not ashamed. 



SATAN AT THE COUET OF HEAVEN. 35 

May he open our eyes to see in every man a soul 
that Christ loves and for whom Christ died. To 
bring accusations against our race is Satan's work, 
not ours. To believe them is to put Satan's esti- 
mate above Christ's. It may be that some of our 
hopes shall fail, and that some of those we trust 
will disappoint us, but on the whole God will do 
exceedingly above all that we ask or think. He 
who works with the largest hope will work with 
the stoutest heart, and will see most of his hopes 
realized. 

"He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small ; 
For the dear God that loveth us, 
He made and loveth all.'' 



CHAPTER III. 

SATAN LET LOOSE. 

" So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and 
smote Job." 

pHARLES KINGSLEY once remarked that 
^^ Satan's latest trick is to pretend that he is 
dead/' A much older theologian observed that it 
has always been a favorite device with the Evil 
One to persuade men that he does not exist. If 
this be his design, he has much reason to exult in 
its success, for while there are few who go so far as 
openly to deny the fact of his existence, there are 
multitudes to whom he is practically nothing more 
than a dead devil. There are, indeed, very few 
who have any adequate conception of his real pres- 
ence and power on the earth. 

The fact of a powerful spirit, full of all malice, 
constantly active to destroy us is scarcely felt at all 
as one of the factors of human affairs. It is a very 
poor general who fails to learn all that may be 
known of the enemy's character and power and de- 

36 



SATAN LET LOOSE. 37 

signs ; so he is but an ill-trained soldier of Jesus 
Christ who neglects the information God has given 
us concerning the great enemy of our souls. We 
will well deserve defeat if we are so foolish as to 
accept without consideration the mere rumors of the 
camp concerning Satan and his devices^ especially 
when these rumors bear the most suspicious marks 
of Satan's authorship. The present popular notions 
of the Evil One are just such as favor his design 
of concealment, and thus give him easy access to 
the citadel of our hearts. 

The most popular conceptions of Satan at this 
time are wonderfully ill-considered and often 
grossly absurd. A few of the more common of 
these notions may be classified and examined under 
three general forms, one or other of which they 
generally assume : 

The first we may call the transcendental theory. 
This represents Satan as a philosophical abstraction 
signifying evil influences in general. He is, ac- 
cording to this theory, the personification of the 
hurtful, the corrupting, the degrading ; in short, 
of every influence that makes for unrighteousness. 
This doctrine is put forward under banners most 
likely to attract the eye and win the popular favor. 
It is introduced as '^ advanced,'^ " modern,^' '^ scien- 



38 THE MAN OF UZ. 

tific^^ and whatever else may serve to advertise it as 
something new and different from the traditional 
faith. The chief reason for its being accepted lies 
in the reaction that has followed the too vivid fancy 
concerning Satan's personal agency in the affairs of 
men. The witchcraft craze of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, with its barbarity and shame, was not only 
the death-struggle of a degrading superstition, but 
it was also the beginning of a reaction which has 
carried the present age far to the opposite extreme. 
Because the absurd garments in which the ignorant 
fancy of the Middle Ages had clothed Satan have 
been cast out of respectable belief we deceive our- 
selves with the notion that we have got rid of the 
fiend himself. This doctrine of Satan is, however, 
never received on its own merits. It comes in as 
a part of a whole system of theology, which strives 
to retain old names and forms of doctrine, but in- 
terprets out of them all positive meaning, leaving 
little more than a lot of pretty .allegories which 
may mean this or that or nothing, according to the 
reader's fancy. 

Of course, such a doctrine is practically a mere 
denial that any such person as Satan exists, and it 
is all the more dangerous because it does not shock 
our conservative sense by saying so too plainly. It 



SATAN LET LOOSE. 39 

is the most subtle form of Satan^s design to per- 
suade men that he does not exist. 

The second form of popular conception of Satan 
we may call the mediaeval. This represents him as 
a grotesque and absurd but not very dangerous 
being. He is pictured as horned and hoofed, armed 
with a pitchfork, the coarse companion of witches, 
cowardly, cunning and superstitious. This is the 
devil of the common theatre and of pictorial art. 
It is the popular conception of the ignorant and the 
worldly. In the minds of such, Satan is associated 
with the spectacular drama, blue-fire and a smell 
of brimstone. His name suggests to them the 
comedian and the property-room of the theatre, 
rather than any serious reality of the moral world. 
This notion of the Evil One is the result of Middle 
Age superstition worked over by modern irrever- 
ence. The state of mind in which it flourishes is 
that which finds amusement in irreverent remarks 
on sacred things and fancies that they are witty. 
In the minds of the rude and ignorant this concep- 
tion answers Satan^s purpose quite as well as the 
transcendental view does in the minds of the more 
cultured. In both his object is to conceal his deadly 
malice and great might and to persuade men that 
he does not exist. In the one case he is merely a 



40 THE MAN OF UZ. 

subjective image, a figment of the imagination, de- 
noting certain more or less real evils, but devoid 
of personality, and therefore not to be dreaded as a 
present danger. In the other conception of him 
there is such an air of absurdity, of " bouflfe,^^ such 
a flavor of unreality and buffoonery, that it is al- 
most impossible to persuade any one to take him 
seriously. It is evident that, whether he originated 
these notions of himself or not, they are exceed- 
ingly well suited to his subtle purpose of pretend- 
ing he is dead. 

There is a third conception of Satan^s character, 
which we may call the heroic. This presents him 
as the unsuccessful but brilliant leader of a great 
rebellion in heaven. He is wicked but magnificent. 
John Milton^s poetic genius created this picture for 
us, and, Puritan though he was, he has made the 
Satan of " Paradise Lost^^ one of the most interest- 
ing characters in all literature. Milton does not 
fail to tell us that Satan is bad, but at the same 
time he exhibits in him such bravery and fortitude, 
such shrewdness, skill and eloquence, that we can- 
not but admire him, and while our judgment is 
against him our sympathies are with him. Of 
course, this is poetry, not dogmatics, but it has for 
that very reason entered the more widely into the 



SATAN LET LOOSE. 41 

current conceptions of the prince of darkness. Mil- 
ton was one of the few j.oets whom the Puritans 
would read, and his influence must have been very 
great and very dangerous. It is indeed rather sur- 
prising that among all the forms of ungodliness 
that have been organized or formulated some party 
has not taken Milton's Satan as their hero and 
patron. It would be hard to imagine a leader bet- 
ter suited to gain the applause and command the 
obedience of some anarchist parties, and the time 
may come when they will read good literature 
enough to find him. The danger of such a view 
of Satan^s character is evidently of quite another 
kind from those we have mentioned above. The 
danger here is not that we come to think of him as 
unreal, but, believing that he does exist, come to 
regard him as having a good deal to claim in his 
favor. Our sympathy so naturally inclines to the 
weaker party in the conflict that if Satan can be 
supposed to have any such good qualities as Milton 
gives him, there will be plenty of silly folk to pro- 
fess, and possibly to feel, some sentimental admira- 
tion for him, just as there are ahvays some weak- 
minded sentimentalists to make heroes of the vilest 
criminals when they are about to be punished. 
Sympathy is a lovely grace, but such diseased and 



42 THE MAN OF UZ. 

morbid sympathy as this, which would turn loose 
upon society tlie cruel and brutal wretches whom 
justice claims for the gallows, is a pitiable kind of 
idiocy. And yet this is almost wisdom compared 
to the insanity that would make a hero of the 
prince of darkness, the malignant enemy of souls. 
The Satan of the book of Job is a very different 
being from any of these. He is an actual, per- 
sonal, powerful being, shrewd, busy and full of 
deadly malice. He knows Job thoroughly, and all 
his circumstances intimately. He hates him with 
a bitter and aggressive hatred, a hatred that is 
wholly malignant. Job had done nothing against 
him on account of which Satan might be expected 
to hate him. His guile was not 

" Stirred up with envy and revenge," 

as Milton puts it; it is the outgoing of native 
malevolence. It is a bitter and implacable hatred, 
that knows no reason, no pity, no remorse. It is 
hatred absolute, malevolence unmixed. It is not 
rage nor fury nor anger such as mortals know, but 
black, cold, hellish hate. This is what we have to 
fight, " For our wrestling is not against flesh and 
blood, but against the principalities, against the 
powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, 



SATAN LET LOOSE. 43 

against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the 
heavenly places/^ 

"Our old, mortal foe 
Now aims his fell blow, 
Great might and deep guile 
His horrid coat-of-mail ; 
On earth is no one like him." 

He comes forth from the presence of the Lord 
exulting in his license to hurt Job and gloating 
over the prospect of seducing him from his in- 
tegrity. With what eagerness he strikes him ! and 
what weapons he has ! The wind and the light- 
ning and the rapacity of man are wielded by him 
as if they were his own proper weapons. Whether 
he has power over the forces of nature dijfiferent in 
kind from the power man has over the same is an 
open question. On the one hand^ there is no reason 
to doubt that he may have; on the other hand, 
there is no necessity for insisting that he has. His 
superior knowledge of the laws of nature may be 
quite enough to account for all the facts. Man can 
do wonders with the lightning now which a very 
few years ago would have been thought possible 
only to supernatural beings. That he has power 
to stir up the minds of wicked men to evil deeds is 
more certain. Every evil habit, every unrighteous 



44 THE MAN OF UZ, 

desire is a handle for Satan to hold us by and to 
lead us captive at his will. There is nothing very 
mysterious about this. We are familiar with the 
way by which wicked men influence other men by 
their vices and evil desires ; how they excite them 
and develop them until they become stronger than 
conscience, and then pander to them at their own 
price. The liquor-seller who deliberately creates 
or intensifies the appetite to which he caters is a 
horrible example of this devilish method of leading 
men by the handles of vice. What such men do 
in their measure Satan does in his larger way. In 
this, as in other ways which we have noticed, the 
prince of darkness hides his hand, persuades men 
that he does not exist. Personal liberty is to men 
a delusion ; to Satan it is a ghastly joke, at which 
he and the fiends of hell laugh with that horrible 
laughter which is the mockery of mirth. The 
father of lies has never circulated a belief that is 
more intensely false than this, that he is the patron 
of the bright and joyous side of life. He offers us 
the gratification of our desires in the name of free- 
dom, but he takes good care that each indulgence 
makes it harder to abstain, and when desire be- 
comes stronger than principle we are like a ship 
that has lost its rudder — the wreck is sure to come, 



SATAN LET LOOSE. 45 

no matter what wind blows, for there are clangers 
on every side. It is just here that we see the in- 
sufficiency of all reforms that aim at anything less 
than a radical change of principle. Little does the 
Evil One care into w-hich of his traps you fall. 
What gain is it to escape the snare of drunkenness 
only to fall into the pit of filthy lewdness ? What 
advantage has the man whose avarice destroys him 
over the man whose sensuality destroys him ? 
Sometimes it suits the deviPs purpose best to have 
us rich in this world^s goods ; in other cases it is 
his aim to take away these things. His attack on 
Job was by stripping him of all he valued. But his 
attack on you may be just the opposite. We know 
not which is the more severe, but we see enough 
of the danger of both to feel the wisdom of the 
prayer of Agur, the son of Jakeh, ^^Give me 
neither poverty nor riches ; feed me with food con- 
venient for me : lest I be full and deny thee, and 
say, Who is the Lord ? or lest I be poor and steal, 
and take the name of God in vain.^^ All honor to 
the rich man who is a faithful steward of the good 
things God has committed to his care, but equal 
honor to the poor man who is faithful and con- 
tented in his lot. 

Now see this pretended friend of pleasure, this 



46 THE MAN OF UZ, 

patron of happiness, this jolly good fellow, as he 
would have us believe, — see him when he gets a 
man in his power. How he hurls his weapons, 
with scowling hate, till he sees him swept bare of 
every possession, bereft of every earthly comfort, 
ruined in fortune and distressed in mind, the object 
of the pity and compassion of every one who reads 
his sad story ! Surely this is enough to satisfy the 
spite of even a devil ; surely, we say, unprovoked 
dislike cannot go beyond this. But we are mis- 
taken ; here is a hatred that does not know what 
pity is. He has begged for further license against 
Job, and, having gotten it, he proceeds to strike the 
man who is down. He leaps on him, torments 
him, and uses every means in his power to destroy 
him, soul and body. 

The whole story of Satan's abuse of Job is a 
picture of the lowest, meanest malice. There is 
nothing here of the grotesque, the jesting devil 
of the modern stage or the daily paper. There is 
nothing here of the heroic Satan of Milton, nor 
of the vague abstraction of our ^^progressive'' 
friends. There is nothing here but bitter hatred, 
implacable, deadly and inhuman. It is the work 
of the Old Serpent, the horrible Dragon of the 
bottomless pit. 



SATAN LET LOOSE. 47 

So it ever is. Our adversary is fall of guile ; 
he can assume the appearance of an angel of light ; 
he can pose as the friend of youthful sport, the 
champion of freedom, the patron of sweetness and 
light. But look at his victims : are they peaceful ? 
are they joyous? They laugh, perhaps, but it is 
either with tliat silly laugh that is like '' the crack- 
ling of thorns under a pot^^ or that horrible bar- 
room laugh that can hardly be distinguished from 
a curse. 

Hardly anything is more indicative of character 
than the laugh. A terrible history of a souFs 
degradation might be written by simply describ- 
ing the laugh — if this were possible — from the 
silly laugh of those who trifle with sin to the 
coarse yell of those whom sin has brutalized. 
Nothing can be farther from mirth than the heart 
that the Evil One has conquered. It is unspeak- 
ably sad, not merely with the sadness of misfortune 
and pain and disappointment, but with a deeper 
and darker sadness — a sadness that is not only 
dark but hideous, terrifying, causing one to shriek 
with terror. 

But Satan is not supreme. He is superhuman, 
superior to flesh and blood, but the ^^seed of the 
woman '^ hath bruised the serpent's head. 



48 THE MAN OF UZ. 

" By might of ours can nought be done : 

Our fate were soon decided. 
But for us fights a champion, 

By God himself provided. 
Who is this, ask ye? 
Jesus Christ: 'tis he: 
Lord of Sabaoth, 
True God and Saviour both, 

Omnipotent in battle." 

So Luther puts it, and so it is. No man can cope 
with such an adversary. But help hath been laid 
on one who is mighty to save. He hath taken our 
nature and become man, that through death he 
might destroy him that had the power of death, 
that is, the devil. The more we realize the terrible 
danger we are in from the great enemy of souls, 
the mor^ we will feel the need of a divine Saviour 
to come with the omnipotence of God for our de- 
liverance ; the more we will rejoice in the gospel of 
Christ our Champion and the Captain of our salva- 
tion. Then we can sing in triumph, 

" Did devils fill the earth and air, 

All eager to devour us, 
Our steadfast hearts need feel no care. 

Lest they should overpower us. 
The grim prince of hell, 
With rage though he swell. 



SATAN LET LOOSE. 49 

Hurts us not a whit, 
Because his doom is writ; 
A little word can rout him. 

" The Word of God will never yield 

To any creature living; 
He stands with us upon the field, 

His grace and Spirit giving. 
Take they child and wife, 
Goods, name, fame and life, — 
Though all this be done, 
Yet have they nothing won: 

The kingdom still remaineth."* 

* (" Ein feste Burg." Trans, of Dr. T. C. Porter.) 
4 



CHAPTER lY. 

THE HEROISM OF ENDURANCE. 

" Ye have heard of the patience of Job.'' — J as. 5 : 11. 

rpiHE name of Job has become the very synonym 
-*- of patience. But patience, like the book of 
Job, must be well known to be appreciated at its 
proper worth. It is the crowning grace of Chris- 
tian character, the sweetest and fairest fruit of the 
Spirit, but its very nature is to hide from sight and 
observation. The perfection of its beauty consists 
in this, that it is never showy, but modest, unob- 
trusive, quiet. 

We are prone to estimate all things by the force 
they show, by the active energy they manifest. 
TTe say the blacksmith shapes the iron with his 
hammer, while the anvil, which outwears a score 
of hammers, is not so much as mentioned. We 
speak of the power of steam as that which drives 
the engine, till, now and then, an explosion re- 
minds us that the strength of resistance must be 
greater than the force of steam or there will be 

50 



THE HEROISM OF ENDURANCE. 51 

trouble. So it is in Christian character : the active 
virtues, such as courage, benevolence, hospitality 
and the like, are so much more easily seen that we 
too often come to regard the passive graces, such 
as meekness, gentleness and patience, as secondary 
both in beauty and influence ; but this is ]:)y no 
means the case. They are not only the eminently 
Christ-like graces, but they are abundantly fruit- 
ful and effective in good works and well-rounded 
manhood. 

The tendency of our religious life to-day is 
strongly toward the active and utilitarian extreme. 
To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, nurse the 
sick, preach the gospel to the poor and send it to 
the heathen are duties recognized and performed in 
this age as never before on earth. This is well : 
we thank God that it is so ; but there is a very 
serious danger that we come to look on these activi- 
ties as constituting our religion. We need to culti- 
vate with greater care the passive virtues, the graces 
of endurance, or our life will grow one-sided, lack- 
ing symmetry, thus failing of the standard set for 
us in the gospel, ^' That ye may stand perfect and 
complete in all the will of God.^' 

Another difficulty in the way of properly appre- 
ciating the grace of patience is that its exercise is 



52 THE MAN OF UZ. 

so closely coiiDected with what we call our temper, 
a most uncertain thing in most of us. In some 
moods we are able to bear much, while in other 
moods the merest trifles make the currents of our 
soul run rough and muddy. A piece of iron may 
be tested and warranted to stand a certain strain at 
any time, but it is not so with men ; at one time 
we can bear a mountain of outrage or injustice, at 
another time the grasshopper is a burden. To at 
all appreciate a test of character in the grace of 
patience we must consider delicately every circum- 
stance of the trial, and especially the order of the 
events. It would be hard to imagine circumstances 
or an order of events better adapted to the devilish 
purpose of breaking down the patience of a man 
than that which Satan devised to ruin Job. 

Misfortune, affliction, bereavement, pain and 
dishonor are poured upon him. First, he is strip- 
ped of his wealth ; then, at one dreadful stroke, 
his sons and daughters all are taken from him. 
He was thus, in a moment, dashed from the highest 
place of fortune to the lowest depth of adversity ; 
he was penniless and desolate. He called his servant 
and received no answer; he realizes by this that he 
is deserted. He looked to his wife for sympathy, 
but she, poor soul ! had broken down under these 



THE HEROISM OF ENDURANCE. 53 

sad losses^ and, saddest of all, had lost her faith in 
God. Job is urged to embrace despair and in- 
fidelity. He longs for sympathy, but the very 
children in the street mock him ; there is " none 
so poor to do him reverence.'^ Such was the or- 
der and severity of Satan^s first attack. It was 
devilish in plot and execution, but it failed to 
shake the faith of the man who " feared God and 
eschewed evil.^^ ^^The Lord gave, and the Lord 
hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord,^^ 
said Job, and the blessed God looked down from 
heaven on his brave saint with admiration and 
commendation. 

Now the second onset of Satan begins. He 
strikes Job suddenly with painful and loathsome 
disease. So sorely is he stricken that he becomes 
oifensive to his own senses, and groans in agony of 
pain. He cries out in anguish for death to come 
to his relief. Still he rules his spirit, and from 
these depths cries unto the Lord with unwavering 
faith ; his soul " waited for the Lord more than 
they that watch for the morniug.^^ 

But the end is not yet; there is a severer test 
awaiting Job, in a quarter where he least expected 
it. The sharpest trial of his patience comes from 
his friends. This seems strange, but it is often 



54 THE MAN OF UZ. 

so : no eoemy can so exasperate us as an unreason- 
able friend. When Job's three friends heard of his 
affliction and the sad plight he was in, they came 
at once to see him ; with delicate good taste they 
would not intrude upon his silent grief, but with rent 
mantles and dust-besprinkled heads they ^* sat down 
with him on the ground seven days and seven 
nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they 
saw that his grief was very great/' This was very 
kind ; it was the first bit of bright sky Job had 
seen since the storm of trouble burst upon him. 
But it was only such brightness as Satan always 
gives when he is managing — a deceitful glimmer 
only to excite a hope which will soon be quenched 
and leave him in deeper darkness than before. 
Satan used these friends for his malignant purposes 
with great adroitness. They were not turned against 
Job at once ; it might have been easier for Job to 
bear it if it had been so. It would have saddened 
his life more, perhaps, but it would not have been 
so trying to his patience as their wrong-headed 
friendship was. 

They were men of strict integrity; they were 
sincere friends of Job ; they loved him dearly and 
were deeply grieved in his affliction, all the more 
because they believed that he had brought it on 



THE HEROISM OF ENDVBANCE. 55 

himself by some siu, which, though hidden from 
them and from the world, God saw and was now 
visiting with his displeasure. 

Job loved his friends, and strove with all his 
might to vindicate his character in their sight. 
But they were men of a settled theory, not open 
to conviction, probably holding it impious to enter- 
tain a doubt of the truth of their creed. '' Suffer- 
ing,'^ they said, " is the penalty of sin ; Job suffers, 
therefore Job has sinned.^' Moreover, since he 
suffers so terribly, he must have sinned greatly ; 
the fact that he has seemed good only aggravates 
the case, for it proves that he was a cunning hypo- 
crite. This was their theology ; not wholly false, 
yet totally misleading ; not open to argument, and 
therefore not to be shaken by facts or logic. Yet 
these men were by no means stupid bigots. Their 
manners were courteous and refined, their language 
dignified and their reasoning high and scholarly. 
They were gentlemen of a fine type. 

Their fault was a fault most prevalent among 
scholars everywhere — too much confidence in their 
own opinion. They set themselves to this un- 
pleasaut task of bringing Job to penitence and con- 
fession, not from any envious pleasure in seeing 
him humbled, but because they honestly loved him 



56 THE MAN OF UZ. 

and thoroughly believed that unless he would re- 
pent and put away the secret sin^ whatever it was, 
that had brought him to his present sad state, he 
would be undone for ever. So they come to com- 
fort and to help him. 

For one whole week they sit beside him in silent 
sympathy. ^^The heart knoweth its own bitter- 
ness : and a stranger doth not intermeddle with its 
joy.^^ They show by every conventional sign of 
their time and country how they desire to share his 
burden, how they are afflicted in his affliction. 

How true it is that silence is golden, speech is 
but silver. After a whole week of silent sympathy, 
which was like balm to the wounded spirit, they 
venture to speak. Eliphaz the Temanite, perhaps 
because the eldest, speaks first. In the gentlest 
and most graceful way he speaks as friend should 
speak to friend, frankly, candidly and with dig- 
nity. He suggests very clearly the belief that Job 
had brought this great distress upon himself, yet 
he is very kindly. He refers to this belief as that 
which all alike held — the orthodox belief of the 
time, as indeed it was. Then, to soften as much 
as possible the blow he felt compelled to give, 
he puts it in the graceful form of a poetic vision, 
saying, 



THE HEROISM OF ENDURANCE, 57 

" Now a thing was secretly brought to me, 
And mine ear received a whisper thereof. 
In thoughts from the visions of the night, 
When deep sleep falleth on men, 
Fear came upon me, and trembling, 
Which made all mj bones to shake. 
Then a spirit passed before my face ; 
The hair of my flesh stood up : 

It stood still, but I could not discern the appearance thereof: 
A form was before mine eyes : 
There was silence, and I heard a voice saying, 
Shall mortal man be more just than God? 
Shall a man be more pure than his Maker ?" 

Thus the old gentleman sets forth the universal 
imperfection of mankind^ and paves an easy road 
for Job to come to confession. Then he frankly 
urges him to come now and confess his sin to God, 
and thus seek for mercy and forgiveness : 

" But as for me, I would seek unto God, 
And unto God would I commit my cause ; 
Which doeth great things and unsearchable. . . . 
For he maketh sore, and bindeth up ; 
He woundeth, and his hands make whole. 
He shall deliver thee in six troubles ; 
Yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. . . . 
Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age. 
Like as a shock of corn cometh in in its season. 
Lo this, we have searched it, so it is ; 
Hear it, and know thou it for thy good." 



58 THE MAN OF UZ, 

An exhortation to repentance could not be more 
gracefully put, nor more honestly. Job answers it 
in the same straightforward way. " I know/^ said 
lie — " I know that it is so : But how can man be 
just with God V^ He does not claim to be without 
sin, but he does claim to be guiltless of any such 
sin as they imply in their speech. He claimed to 
be just what God testified that he was, a complete 
and honest man, who did his duty as he saw it. 
He claimed " integrity,^^ which is moral soundness. 
But his friends will not believe him, and so the 
discussion goes on, the friends taking their stand 
on what they regard as an undeniable first prin- 
ciple, namely, that God is a just ruler, and there- 
fore metes out happiness and affliction as the reward 
of virtue or the penalty of sin. Job does not at first 
deny this; it is evidently what he too had held, 
and it involves so much of truth that he is bewil- 
dered as to where the fallacy lies. But he has a 
fact which he will not give up for all the theories 
he ever held : he is firm in the testimony of a good 
coDScience. On this he stands, as, long after, Mar- 
tin Luther stood, confident that God would not 
condemn him when his conscience did not. Now 
comes what was perhaps the crucial test of his 
patience. His friends speak in turn, and each 



THE HEROISM OF ENDURANCE. 59 

presses a little further the accusations of guilt and 
becomes a little more direct and specific in his 
charges, till at length they all three lose their tem- 
per and become abusive. Eliphaz, who was so 
dignified and gentle at the first, who clothed his 
exhortation in the offenceless form of a vision, now 
becomes almost brutal in his accusations : 

" Is not thj wickedness great ? 
Neither is there any end to thine iniquities. 
For thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought, 
And stripped the naked of their clothing. 
Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, 
And thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. . . . 
Thou hast sent widows away empty, 
And the arms of the fatherless have been broken." 

Bildad and Zophar follow the lead of Eliphaz ; 
they berate Job, call him hard names, abuse him 
for talking so much and complain that he does not 
show them proper respect. In short, there is 
scarcely a mean, unmanly thing in all the cata- 
logue of meanness that they do not accuse him of. 
So utterly silly and unreasonable do even good 
men become when they lose their temper. Their 
elegant language has become common and brutal, 
their profound philosophy is made absurd by their 
extremity, and their politeness is torn to rags and 



60 THE MAN OF UZ. 

tatters ; they were " mad/^ Let this be a warning 
to us, for just so foolish and undignified do we 
become when we get angry. 

We need not follow into further detail the tedious 
repetition of their railing, for it is mere railing now. 
We have seen enough already to convince us that 
the point is reached, and long past, where you or I 
should have lost control of tongue and temper and 
would have answered back in rage. The natural 
impulse to render railing for railing would lead 
most men, in such a case, to pour out such floods 
of boiling words as outraged innocence could find, 
to hurl hard names and hissing contempt from fiery 
tongues, to revile the revilers. 

But what did Job do ? 

The answer cannot be given in a word or two, 
but it is given in the vivid picture which the book 
presents of noble patience, dignified self-control. 
It is not that he says anything so brilliant, though 
his words are often eloquent ; it is not that he com- 
poses epigrams that may be taken as a motto or 
illuminated for the decoration of a church. On 
the contrary, it is ever one of the chief difficulties 
in the way of patience becoming a popular grace 
that it offers no opportunity for brilliant achieve- 
ment. "It vaunteth not itself.'^ When a boiler 



THE HEROISM OF ENDURANCE, 61 

is carrying enormous pressure of steam there is 
nothing to indicate it to one who looks on ; any 
unusual appearance in the metal would be a sign 
of weakness and a cause of alarm. A boiler that 
explodes is not so good as one that does not^ but it 
attracts a great deal more attention. So it is with 
the power of endurance in mind and soul as well 
as in matter : excellence and display do not go 
too^ether. It is the man who endures most and 
makes no sign that attains the highest excellence. 

But the sublime quality of Job's patience appears 
in this, that he endured all this not w^ith the dull 
and stolid temper of one whose sensibilities are 
blunt ; on the contrary, he was a man of most deli- 
cate feeling, and almost all circumstances com- 
bined to make him keenly sensitive. He had been 
^^the greatest of all the men of the east,'' and 
doubtless was accustomed to receive the highest 
honor and most respectful courtesy from all who 
approached him ; he was not accustomed to being 
charged with crime or meanness. He was a gentle- 
man, and would keenly feel the rudeness of his 
friends ; from the rabble he could have received it 
with contempt, but from friends whom he respected 
it was bitterly unkind. 

Such were the tests to which the patience of this 



62 THE MAN OF UZ. 

noble man was put. Certainly the vast majority 
of men would have found their stock of patience 
utterly exhausted, and would have raved in what 
they would regard as '^righteous indignation/^ 
Here and there is found a man who could have 
bitten his lips and silently endured it all. As a beast 
will shrug himself in the corner of his field and 
bear the winter^s storm, so some men could wrap 
the cloak of silent dignity about them and with a 
sort of dogged resignation suffer thus. But this is 
not the highest kind of patience. Job did not take 
refuge in silence, but spoke out boldly and freely 
in self-defence. He does not cease to maintain his 
integrity ; he does not take the air of injured inno- 
cence; there are no tears in his voice when he 
answers the bitter charges of his angry friends. 
An occasional flash of sarcasm is seen, but even 
this never exceeds the limits of courteous debate: 

" No doubt but ye are the people, 
And wisdom shall die with you. 
But I have understanding as well as you ; 
I am not inferior to you : 
Yea, who knoweth not such things as these ?" 

These are sharp words, but not with the acid of 
anger. So all the way through he does not hesi- 
tate to strike in self-defence, and good sound ring- 



THE HEROISM OF ENDURANCE. 63 

ing blows he gives^ but they are arguments^ not 
railing or abuse. Job^s patience was not mere non- 
resistance : it was the much more delicate and diflS- 
cult task of maintaining the right while suffering 
wrong. He owed it to the cause of truth as well 
as of justice to vindicate his character if possible ; if 
not, still to assert the truth and wait for God's good 
time to bring the evidence. So he fights for his 
honor as for life; he answers the accusations of 
his friends with flat denial ; he rebukes their con- 
duct, yet says no word unkind or unduly severe. 
'^ He was reviled, yet he reviled not again ; when 
he suffered he threatened not, but committed him- 
self to Him that judgeth righteously. '^ Toward 
God he was humble and submissive ; he suffered, 
but worshiped. Toward the world, which he loved 
with an honest, open-hearted love, he looked back 
with regret, but without repining. Toward his 
friends, in whom he was disappointed, he main- 
tained a dignified defence and a kindly temper. 
Such was the patience of Job. 

I submit to you that there is no more sublime 
and Christ-like grace, no one in all the catalogue 
of virtues that demands such high and godlike 
powers. In patience there is no place for small 
ambition, which craves the world's applause; no 



64 THE MAN OF UZ, 

place for the stimulus of passion^ which makes 
even cowards brave on the exciting field of battle. 
Down in the silent depths of the soul the battle 
must be fought, the raging passions held with a 
hand steady enough to give them justice and yet 
restraint. And when you have succeeded the world 
will not place the victor's crown upon your brow, 
for you will have but poorly succeeded if the world 
knows anything of the battle you have fought. 
You will, however, have the much more precious 
rewards, an approving conscience and the favor of 
your Father in heaven. You will have attained a 
good degree in the grace which is pre-eminently 
Christ-like, which the glorious company of the 
apostles praise and which the noble army of the 
martyrs exemplify to their unceasing honor. 

Patience will never be a popular grace ; it costs 
too much and makes too little show for that. The 
world likes virtues that glitter more and that go 
off w^ith a louder report, but Christianity gives the 
place of honor to that grace which suffers long and 
still is kind; that does not vaunt itself, is not 
puffed up ; does not behave itself unseemly, seeks 
not its own, and is not easily provoked; which 
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all 
things and endures all things. Such is the greatest 



THE HEROISM OF ENDURANCE, 65 

of all graces, the grace that never fails. Call it 
charity or love or patience, or by what name you 
please, it is and ever will be the higli-water mark 
of Christian attainment. Moreover, it is a most 
powerful grace; in its influence on the world it is, 
perhaps, the most efficient of all. Good men are 
'' the light of the world f their influence is like 
that of the gentle sunshine, without violence, 
silently, gently and by gradually increasing power 
brightening and blessing the world. There is no 
escape from this kind of influence. When our 
position is assailed by force of argument we in- 
stinctively fortify ourselves against it; just as soon 
as a man begins to hammer us with logic we 
harden ourselves and feel that our honor is some- 
how involved in a successful resistance. But when 
we see a Christian suffer well, strong in adversity, 
calm in sorrow, contented in a hard lot, gentle 
under wrong and patient under outrage and con- 
tumely, our admiration is aroused; we feel that 
there is something great and godlike in this — a 
reality that logic cannot change, a sweet influence 
to which honest hearts of every creed give welcome 
access. There are many things that you can melt 
but never break. 

The kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is founded 



66 THE MAN OF UZ. 

on forgiveness, and it is distinguished chiefly by the 
grace of patience. 

The ^^ Prince of Peace" is the ^^Lamb of God." 
His victories are all the fruit of a most marvelous 
endurance. The law of his kingdom is, '' Do right, 
endure as a good soldier of Christ, and leave the 
rest to God." Alas, how often we are careful and 
troubled about many things, and cumbered with 
much serving! Let us remember the words, 

*' They also serve who only stand and wait." 



CHAPTER y. 

AN ANCIENT CREED. 
*^I know that my Kedeeiner liveth." 

rpRUTH is always true, ever the same. There 
-^ is a sense, therefore, in which a creed, if true 
at any time, is true at all times. The principles 
of morals and religion do not change. God^s pur- 
poses are absolute. The promise made to our first 
parents that the seed of the woman should bruise the 
serpent's head contains the everlasting gospel ; it 
contains the whole of the gospel, as the Child who 
lay in the manger at Bethlehem was the same as 
the Man who ^' suffered under Pontius Pilate, was 
crucified, dead, and buried.^' There is but one 
gospel ; it is the " same yesterday, to-day and for 
ever.'' But the revelation of this gospel is pro- 
gressive. In each age " we know in part, and we 
prophesy in part." Each age, standing on the 
shoulders of the ages gone, is able to reach higher 
and see with a wider horizon. We see in Scripture 
history very many illustrations of the way in which 

the pinnacles of one man's faith and knowledge 

67 



()8 THE MAN OF UZ. 

become the corner-stones on which the next man 
builds more stately temples. See, for example, how 
the Benedictus or Magnificat is built upon the Pen- 
tateuch and Psalms. What the flower is to the 
plant the gospel is to the old dispensation — the 
same life, the same identity, but with a fuller de- 
velopment and richer beauty. 

The history of the Church shows how God has 
led his people by ways that often seem mysterious 
and dark. But this is not the wandering of the 
blind led by the blind; it is not the trying of one 
way till that failed, and then the trying of another. 
It is not experiment, but the all-wise providence 
of Him w^ho knows the end from the beginning 
and who makes no mistakes. The rainbow in the 
cloud is the symbol of the everlasting covenant; 
it is but a single arch ; it stretches all the way 
from the gate of the garden of Eden to the pearly 
gates of that city whose maker and builder is God. 
To know God^s truth in its fullness we must know 
it in its order. There is great importance in what 
Dr. Gibson has so happily termed the '' perspective 
of Scripture history.'^ The relations of time and 
place, the sequence of events, are often essential to 
their meaning and always important to their per- 
fect comprehension. 



AN ANCIENT CREED. 69 

In the book of Job we have a very interesting 
view of a good man's belief in very early times. 
It is interesting not only on account of its great 
antiquity, but especially because of its unique and 
somewhat remarkable position. It stands, appar- 
ently, outside the pale of the Old -Testament 
Church, and has a certain catholicity about it that 
is not found in the Mosaic dispensation. We be- 
lieve " in the Holy Catholic Church, '^ and so did 
the prophets of the old dispensatiou, but with a 
diiference. They believed in the future catholicity 
of the Church, but, for the time then being, the 
Church was not so, but Avas exclusive in its very 
constitution. From the time of Abraham, Israel 
was a separated people, a nation culled and set apart 
for a special purpose — namely, that through them 
all nations might be blessed. There was always a 
door by which a man of any nation might come in 
and share the covenant blessings of this chosen 
race, but practically the Church from Abraham to 
Christ was strictly exclusive, literally the seed of 
Abraham. But the separation of that people and 
the giving to them of special privileges did not ^^ dis- 
annul the promises,'^ and the promise was a bless- 
ing for all nations of the earth. St. Paul claims 
the blessing promised to Abraham and to his seed 



70 THE MAN OF UZ. 

as the inheritance of the Christian Church. " If ye 
be Christ^s then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs 
according to the promise/' St. Peter also, though 
with difficulty, apprehended the truth, that '' in 
every nation he that feareth God, and worketh 
righteousness, is accepted with him.'' 

The book of Job, though possibly written by a 
child of Abraham, does not present Job as a mem- 
ber of that chosen race. Whether we suppose him 
to have lived before the call of Abraham, or to 
have lived outside the special covenant, in either 
case the form of his faith lacks the peculiar features 
of the Old-Testament symbols and phraseology. 
His God is not spoken of as the " God of Abra- 
ham, Isaac and Jacob ;" no covenant is referred 
to, no temple or tabernacle, no Aaronic priesthood 
and no Sinaitic ritual. There are the same great 
truths, as we shall see, but the architecture, so to 
speak, is different. It is high and catholic, and 
above all reverent. Let us look at it. ' 

The fundamental article in every creed is that 
which states w^hat we believe concerning God. 
The Israel itish creed began with this : ^' Hear, 
O Israel ; The Lord our God is one Lord." 

In our familiar creed we beo;in with the same 



AN ANCIENT CREED. 71 

article : ^' I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
maker of heaven and earth/^ 

So in the book of Job we find the most promi- 
nent article of faith is this belief in God as the 
Almighty Creator of heaven and earth. Nowhere 
do we have such a sublime picture of creation as in 
this book. The very words riog with a poetic 
grandeur in keeping with the grandeur of the 
theme : 

^' He stretcheth out the north over empty space, 
And hangeth the earth upou nothing. . . . 
He closeth in the face of his throne, 
And spreadeth his cloud upon it. . . . 
The pillars of heaven tremble 
And are astonished at his rebuke. . . . 
By his spirit the heavens are garnished ; 
His hand hath pierced the swift serpent. 
Lo, these are but the outskirts of his ways ; 
And how small a whisper do we hear of him ! 
But the thunder of his power who can understand?" 

The closing chapters also, though not the words of 
Job, may properly be taken as his conception of 
God's work of creation and providence. In them 
the writer of the book celebrates the glory of God 
as revealed in nature. The rolling thunder, the 
dreadful lightning, the hail, the snow, the furious 
tempest and the silent frost are cited as the wit- 



72 THE MAN OF UZ, 

nesses of power and wisdom in Him who laid 
earth's corner-stone 

" When the morning stars sang together, 
And all the sons of God shouted for joy." 

The great sea, rushing into being, yet shut up with 
bars and doors^ and controlled by the divine com- 
mand, '' Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further ; 
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed/' — all 
this is pictured with the brief clear strokes of the 
true poet. 

Again and again the phenomena of nature are 
celebrated in the most appreciative strains. The 
ordinance of day and night, the time of the day- 
spring, the preparation of supplies of snow and 
hail, are each observed. Then, rising with his 
theme, the poet reviews the sparkling constella- 
tions of the bright eastern sky. In the graceful 
imagery so native to the Oriental mind he presents 
them in the figures of an ancient mythology. The 
peculiar antithesis of Hebrew poetry is also used 
with fine effect : The Pleiades bound like a cluster 
of diamonds ; Orion rejoicing in his freedom ; the 
Mazzaroth (the signs of the Zodiac) led forth like 
noble steeds upon their course ; the Bear and her 
train wanderino; in the darkness of the northern 



AN ANCIENT CREED. 73 

sky ; and all the ordinances of Heaven ruling in 
some mysterious way the destinies of men. 

Such was Job's conception of the great Creator 
and Ruler of heaven and earth. But such was by 
no means the whole nor the highest idea he had of 
the divine Being. 

He does not regard him as merely the powerful 
and wise Creator of heaven and earth, but also, 
and much more, as a tender friend. He who by 
his Spirit hath garnished the heavens does not over- 
look the humblest of his creatures. He nourisheth 
the plants with dew and rain, not only in the parks 
and gardens for the use of man, but 

" In the lonely valley 

And on the mountains high, 
And in the silent wilderness, 
Where no roan passetli by." 

He who fastened the gates of the shadow of death 
does not fail to feed the young ravens when they 
cry, and he satisfies the hungry appetite of the 
young lions. The working of God's providence, 
his care for all creatures, is a theme of which Job 
never seems to weary; again and again, even in 
the depths of his distress, he breaks forth in most 
enthusiastic song of the wonderful works of God. 



74 THE MAN OF UZ, 

We hear much now-a-days of conflict between 
science and religion, as though the Bible was some- 
how out of sympathy with nature ; but such a 
thought could rise only in minds densely ignorant 
of the most important books of holy Scripture. 
Read the book of Job, and tell me where you can 
find in all the sneering pages ever penned by in- 
fidelity such intense and intelligent appreciation of 
nature as is here. It is broad, and in this it differs 
greatly from the narrow, theory-bound admiration 
of so many small scientists and petty theologians. 
It is poetical, yet free from the sickly sentimental- 
ism that is too often the blemish of religio-scientific 
discussion. There is no attempt to exalt nature 
into a god and the love of the beautiful into a cult, 
neither is there any suggestion that '' the trail of 
the serpent is over them all.^' There is no cyn- 
icism in the whole book. Even in the saddest 
hours of his affliction Job does not descend to the 
folly of railing against the course of nature. He 
cries out in his agony for death to come to his re- 
lief; he saw then as he had never seen before the 
insecurity of earthly hopes and the certainty of 
trouble. He felt then as he had never felt before 
the insignificance of man in the great world which 
he inhabits only as a pilgrim and a sojourner for a 



AN ANCIENT CREED. 75 

night. Yet in all this there is no fault-finding, 
but an honest love for the good and beautiful 
things of earth. 

He believed in God the Father Almighty, maker 
of heaven and earth ; and he believed in creation 
as the work of God. It would be well for us if we 
would add this last clause to our creed also. 

But this ancient creed was not merely specula- 
tive ; it was eminently practical. In all this refer- 
ence to God^s power and wisdom there is a practical 
lesson inferred. It was by the study of God^s work 
of creation and providence that Job's own hope 
was confirmed and his confidence maintained. The 
thought which runs through all is that He who 
gives such evidence of power, wisdom and love for 
all cannot do wrong. " Shall not the judge of all 
the earth do right?" 

The only hope and consolation that endured 
through all the dark and dismal day was this : 
God rules above the storm ; " Underneath are the 
everlasting arms." The rock which saved Job's 
faith was this convincing evidence that in this uni- 
verse there is a God whose wisdom none can doubt 
and whose power and care for all is manifest. The 
greatness of Job appears in this, that even when he 
found his former theory of providence to be wrong 



76 THE MAN OF TJZ. 

he does not give up all for lost, but, avoiding de- 
spair on the one hand and cutting loose from his 
false philosophy on the other, he swings clear of 
everything that can by any means be shaken, and 
with serenest confidence holds fast to the simple, 
childlike creed, 

" Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; 
And to depart from evil is understanding." 

He had the courage to " do right whatever comes 
of it.'^ His prayer is ever for God's guidance in 
a world too great for Inm to comprehend: 

" Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, 

Lead thou me on ; 
The night is dark and I am far from home ; 

Lead thou me on. 
Keep thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene ; one step enough for me." 

But while Job believed thus firmly in the provi- 
dence of God, believed that this w^orld was under 
fixed and prudent laws, by which all creatures are 
assigned their places and given a destiny suited to 
their capacity, he believed that far above all this 
God was a friend of those who do his will. God's 
love for Job is vastly more than providential care 
for a creature ; it is a personal love ; it is friend- 



AN ANCIENT CBEED. 77 

ship. God does not say to Satan, ^' Hast thou 
considered the scheme of nature upon the earth, 
what a perfect system it is ? Hast thou observed 
the order of creation, and the evohition age by 
age of higher and nobler forms of life?^^ By no 
means; though these things are doubtless well 
worth considering, the thought here is much 
higher and better. " Hast thou considered my 
servant Job? a perfect and an upright man.^' 
Why, he knows his servant by name; knows his 
character and circumstances ; knows him as friend 
knows friend, and speaks of him with admiration 
and respect ! Ah, yes ; man is a small weak crea- 
ture in this universe, but the man who has Je- 
hovah's friendship, the man of whom Almighty 
God speaks with interest and respect, has a crown 
of glory that outshines all the stars of heaven. 
What dignity it gives to every life to know that 
God takes pleasure in it and that all its works are 
ordained of him ! 

Our Christian creeds, as a rule, pass on directly 
from the being, attributes and work of God to the 
special acts of providence for our redemption. The 
incarnation and earthly life and passion of our 
Saviour are unquestionably the most important 
facts accomplished since the world was made, and 



78 THE MAN OF UZ. 

may very properly be considered in this order ; but 
the order of events is usually the reverse of the 
order of plan or purpose. 

If^ for example^ I wish to reach the top of the 
stairway, I can do so only from the step next to 
the top, and I can reach that one only from the 
next below ; this is the order of my plan ; it be- 
gins with the point to be reached — the object — 
and selects means for reaching that object. In the 
execution of the plan the order is reversed : I must 
start from where I am, and end with that which 
was first in thought — the object. 

All the means to our salvation were included in 
God's purpose from the beginning ; the incarna- 
tion, the passion and the resurrection were present 
realities in the divine mind. But they became ac- 
complished facts only in the fullness of time. Job 
lived long before the incarnation ; whatever he 
knew of the plan of redemption he knew as God^s 
promise, not as history. It may be instructive to 
observe what conception of salvation Job was able 
to form. 

We gather from his words the following points : 

He believed, first, in the absolute sovereignty of 
God; 

Second, that all men are guilty before God ; 



AN ANCIENT CREED. 79 

Third, that God by his free grace saves those 
who call upon him. 

This seems, perhaps, a meagre creed, but it is a 
very comprehensive one. An outline map may be 
just as perfect in its way as one that gives all the 
details. The simple rules of addition and division 
are just as necessary to the great mathematician as 
to the child who knows nothing beyond them. So 
this creed of Job concerning the purpose of re- 
demption is as accurate as could be framed to-day, 
though not so full. 

These are, after all, the great essential truths, 
— God^s sovereignty, man's guilt and salvation by 
free grace. It is the strength of our faith, the 
loyalty of our adherence to the great essentials, 
rather than our knowledge of the details of doc- 
trine that determines our character. All truth is 
precious, and willingness to accept truth as we find 
it is a grace to be sought for by every one with 
prayer and fasting. But the notion that God limits 
his gift of salvation to the sect or party that is 
able to frame the most accurate statement of doc- 
trine is so wretchedly absurd that the virtual 
teaching of it by not a few is a matter of amaze- 
ment and shame. 

One more article of Job's creed is worthy of 



80 THE MAN OF VZ. 

notice^ namely, his belief in the resurrection. The 
familiar text, " I know that my Redeemer liveth, 
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the 
earth : and though after my skin worms destroy 
this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : whom 
I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, 
and not another; though my reins be consumed 
within me,^^ — this text has been the subject of 
much controversy. As it stands in the common 
version, it teaches the doctrine of the resurrection 
very clearly. But the belief that Job intended to 
teach this has probably led the translator to give a 
very liberal rendering of the passage ; at all events, 
it is a very liberal rendering, and can scarcely be 
regarded as more than a fair paraphrase of the 
thought. 

Yet after all this is admitted it remains true 
that this traditional rendering of the passage is 
essentially correct. Job did look for a redeemer, 
a vindicator, who should appear after his decease. 
He had given up the hope he had cherished so long 
that God would restore him, and thus vindicate 
his character; he feels that he shall die under 
the cloud of the world^s condemnation. He has 
surrendered without conditions, and sighs, with 
weary heart, 



AN ANCIENT CREED, 81 

" Know now that God hath overthrown me. . . . 
He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass. . . . 
He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone : 
And mine hope hath he removed like a tree." 

He has reached the lowest point of his humiliation. 
He cries out for pity. His servants desert him, his 
friends revile him, and the very children on the 
street mock him. Does he despair? Does this 
sound like despair? 

" Oh that my words were now written ! 
Oh that they were inscribed in a book ! 
That with an iron pen and lead 
They were graven in the rock for ever ! 
But I know that my redeemer liveth, 
And that he shall stand up at the last upon the earth : 
And after my skin hath been thus destroyed, 
Yet from my flesh shall I see God : 
Whom I shall see for myself. 
And mine eyes shall behold, and not another," 

He has lost all hope of earth, but he is rich in hope 
in God. He has loosed his grasp of this world, 
but only to tighten his grip upon the Rock of ages. 
He has loved this world with an honest, manly love, 
but when God takes it from him he is able to say, 
'' He gave ; he takes ; blessed be his name.^^ Buf- 
feted by Satan, afflicted, tormented and brought 
down to the dust of humiliation, to the shadow of 



82 THE MAN OF UZ. 

death, we look in pity, and wait with tearful 
sympathy to hear his dying groans ; but it is the 
shout of a conqueror that breaks upon our ear. 
It is but another wording of the grand triumphal 
song, 

" Death is swallowed up in victory. 
O death, where is thy sting ? 
O grave, where is thy victory ? 
Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory." 



CHAPTER VI. 

MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE, 

"TTTE read that "the way of transgressors is 
hard/' and our instinct of justice r«3sponds, 
'' It ought to be.'' The iitness of things ^6<;ms 
to require that integrity and prosperity should go 
hand-in-hand. It is assumed that perfect go\drn- 
ment will secure the welfare of the good and the 
overthrow of the wicked. Our faith relies on the 
promise^ " He that walketh uprightly walketh 
surely/' and the common-sense of men expects the 
same. In almost every language there are proverbs 
that assert or imply that ^' godliness is profitable 
unto all thingSj having promise of the life that now 
is and of that which is to come." 

The substantial truth of this belief is hardly 
open to doubt, yet as a theory of life by which to 
explain the works of providence it has never been 
quite satisfactory. Thoughtful men in every age 
have noticed with surprise and disappointment that 
" there be just men to whom it happeneth according 

83 



84 THE MAN OF UZ, 

to the work of the wicked, and there be wicked men 
to whom it happeneth according to the work of the 
righteous/' 

Not only does all nature seem quite blind to 
moral worth, and " red in tooth and claw/' but 
the whole order of providential government fails 
to show, in mortal sight, that favor toward the 
good which we are apt to look for. Like the 
Psalmist, we are often ^Wexed'' to see how pros- 
perous the wicked are, while men " of whom the 
world is not worthy'' are "destitute, afflicted, 
tormented." 

How is this, and why is it ? is the question which 
the larger part of the book of Job discusses. 

The question is not stated in the abstract, but in 
a concrete case — Job's case ; nor is the author's aim 
quite as ambitious as that of the great poet who 
wrote the greatest English epic to 

" assert eternal providence, 
And justify the ways of God to man." 

The purpose of the book of Job (it is well to recog- 
nize it from the first) is neither to explain nor to 
"justify" the ways of God to men, but rather to 
show that they are beyond our comprehension, that 
it is impossible that they should be, in all cases, 



MYSTEETOUS PROVIDENCE. 85 

made plain to mortal man. And the most promi- 
nent lesson of the book is that our inability to jus- 
tify his ways gives no ground at all for doubting 
that they are both just and kind. On the contrary, 
a providence that we could ahvays understand 
would be a very poor and petty providence. 

The case under discussion is briefly this : Job, 
a perfect and an upright man, is introduced to us 
in the height of prosperity. Health and wealth, 
honor and a happy household, fill his cup. He is 
at once a God-fearing man and " the greatest of the 
men of the East.'^ It is not asserted that his pros- 
perity was due to his piety, but the two are so asso- 
ciated as to imply more than accidental connection. 
Suddenly, and with no reason that any mortal man 
could see, a series of most frightful calamities befall 
him. These misfortunes are not due to any one 
cause, but to various forces over which Job has no 
control, therefore implying no fault on his part, 
nor any lack of wisdom. They were clearly provi- 
dential, ^. e. due to causes which could not be fore- 
seen or controlled. They were what the law still 
calls " the act of God.'' 

These were all the facts in the case as it could be 
known to Job and his friends. The question is. 
How can such facts be reconciled with our faith in 



86 THE MAN OF UZ. 

a righteous providence governing all creatures and 
all their actions ? 

There are some answers whicii the author of this 
book did not think worth noticing. There is the 
atheist^s answer^ " There is no God^ and therefore 
no providence. Job had bad luck, and that is the 
whole of it.^^ 

The agnostic answers, ^^Job lost his oxen and 
asses by robbery perpetrated by some party or 
parties unknown, supposed to have been Sabeans. 
The sheep were killed by lightning ; the Chaldeans 
^ lifted^ the cattle; a cyclone caused the death of 
his children ; while Job's disease was evidently 
brought on by natural causes that had nothing re- 
markable about them. As for any overruling 
providence, it is an utterly unscientific hypoth- 
esis,'' etc. 

Others would answer that it was the work of 
some evil spirit, or of those principles of evil which 
war against the good. 

The latter two of these answers have a certain 
amount of truth in them. Both natural causes and 
the evil spirit are distinctly recognized, and their 
place in the chain of causation plainly mentioned. 
The error of the agnostic is in supposing that by 
thus reciting the instrumental causes he has in any 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 87 

degree approached the solution of the real problem 
or exhausted the field of profitable thought con- 
cerniug man's relation to God. To thoughtful 
men there is something repulsive in such flippant 
treatment of questions that have such intimate re- 
lation to the highest and most practical duties of 
life. Much the same thing may be said of those 
who rest the subject on the supposition that it was 
the work of evil spirits. That is true, but is not 
sufficient. The only question worth discussing lies 
back of all this. 

The friends of Job were bigoted, perhaps, but 
they were too broad-minded, too thoughtful, to 
imagine that this was a question to be settled by 
any mere inspection of the instruments employed. 
All parties in the book agree that these afflictions 
came by the permission of a sovereign God. There 
is no quibbling over mere terms, no talk of fate or 
natural law or principle of evil warring against 
the principle of good. They proceed directly to 
the great question, Why has God done thus ? They 
vie with one another in their confession of faith in 
God^s sovereign providence. Job is the first to 
speak. ^^Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, 
and shaved his head, and fell down upon the 
ground, and worshiped ; and he said, Naked came 



88 THE MAN OF UZ, 

I out of my mother^s womb, and naked shall I re- 
turn thither : the Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord/^ 

Eliphaz clothes his confession in poetic imagery, 
a vision, and a voice saying, " Shall mortal man be 
more just than God? shall man be more pure than 
his Maker f' 

Bildad puts his creed more bluntly : '' Doth God 
pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert 
justice ?^^ 

Zophar continues in the same high tone : 

*' Canst thou by searching find out God ? 
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? 
It is high as heaven : what canst thou do ? 
Deeper than Sheol : what canst thou know ?'' 

They agree in these two points : God is sovereign, 
and God is just ; absolutely sovereign, and infinitely 
just. But from this point their creeds diverge. In 
answer to the question how God can be just and yet 
afflict the righteous, the three friends stoutly deny 
that he ever does afflict them. They are unanimous 
in their belief that uprightness secures prosperity. 
To deny this is, in their minds, infidelity. If the 
wicked prospers at all, it is only for a little while, 
and in order that his destruction may be the more 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 89 

terrible when it comes. Reduced to its simplest 
terms, their theory was simply quid pro quo — so 
much righteousness for so much prosperity. 

According to this rule they judge Job^s case and 
account for his misfortunes. They tell him, kindly 
and with evident sympathy, but none the less posi- 
tively, that he is suffering the righteous penalty 
of great wickedness. They do not deny that he 
had given every evidence of being a good man, but 
they know, as we do, that appearances are no cer- 
tain index of the hearths condition. They did not 
consider the good repute of Job sufficient reason 
for setting aside what they regarded as a well- 
established doctrine of divine justice, and they were 
quite right in their ruling on the point. The odor 
of sanctity may create a presumption of innocence, 
but it cannot be pleaded in answer to facts or well- 
established principles. In this case the facts were 
not accessible; they must decide on general prin- 
ciples. According to these, Job^s affliction proved 
his wickedness. 

Against this Job has nothing to answer, except 
the assertion of his own innocence. He can only 
plead '' Not guilty,^^ and appeal to his good stand- 
ing in the community to give some value to his 
assertion. This was his whole case, and it was 



90 THE MAN OF UZ, 

still further weakened by the fact that he could not 
claim absolute innocence; he was only relatively 
pure^ guiltless of such uncommon sin as his unusual 
misfortunes indicated^ on their theory. 

The friends, very naturally, refuse to see in this 
answer any good ground for setting aside a well- 
established theory of providence. The case was 
closed ; it could not be argued any farther on this 
line. 

But these friends are not a court to whose de- 
cision Job felt bound to submit; they are simply 
friends who have volunteered to give advice, and 
who become offended, as such friends so often do, 
because their advice is not accepted. Their advice 
was kindly given, but it involved the assumption 
of Job's great guilt and hypocrisy. This he will 
not admit, and therefore he appeals from their 
judgment by calling in question their whole theory 
of providence. He boldly raises the question. Does 
God always reward the righteous and afflict the 
wicked? He does not quite deny this, but he calls 
it in question. He cites some facts hard to account 
for on the supposition that it is so. He throws the 
burden of proof on those who have asserted it to 
convict him, and thus it becomes the burning ques- 
tion of the book. Each friend in turn brinp-s this 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE, 91 

doctrine of divine rewards and punishments in this 
world and fairly hurls it at Job^s head. Eliphaz 
first puts it thus : 

" Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent ? 

Or where were the righteous cut off? 
Even as I have seen, they that plough iniquity, and sow 

wickedness, reap the same. 
By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his 

nostrils are they consumed." 

Bildad follows in the same strain : 

" If thou wert pure and upright ; surely now he would awake 

for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness 

prosperous. . . . 
Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow 

without water ? 
Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it 

withereth before any other herb. 
So are the paths of all that forget God ; and the hypocrite's 

hope shall perish. . . . 
He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: he 

shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure. . . . 
Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will 

he help the evil-doers.'^ 

Zophar^ more briefly^ but to the same effect : 

" The eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, 
and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost." 



92 THE MAN OF UZ. 

Job, thus goaded, breaks out with a bold denial of 
the facts, and asserts that just the opposite is true : 

" No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with 

you. 
But I have understanding as well as you ; I am not inferior 

to you : yea, who knoweth not such things as these ? 
I am as one mocked of his neighbor, who calleth upon God, 

and he answereth him : the just, upright man is laughed 

to scorn. 
He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised 

in the thought of him that is at ease. 
The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God 

are secure : into whose hand God bringeth abundantly." 

Job is thoroughly aroused, perhaps a little ex- 
cited. He is apparently alarmed at his own bold- 
ness. It seems even to him very little short of 
blasphemy to deny that God deals out prosperity 
like rations to the children of men, according to 
their deserts. But he is convinced that there is 
something radically wrong with a theory that has 
to ignore so many facts. He has begun to cite 
these facts, and plunges ahead to the very border 
of impious challenge of God^s justice : 

" He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges 
fools. 
He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with 
a girdle. 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 93 

He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the 

mighty. . . . 
He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the 

strength of the mighty. . . . 
He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the 

earth, and caiiseth them to wander in a wilderness 

where there is no way/^ 

The utter pettiness of their theory becomes more 
apparent to him as he reviews the facts of history. 
Yet he speaks as one who feels the fainting sensa- 
tion of collapsing orthodoxy. He has broken with 
the old doctrine, and is at sea, sure only of this, 
that whatever truth was, it was not their doctrine. 
" Horror took hold of him,^^ he says, when he first 
faced the fact that the wicked often prosper, while 
the godly are afflicted and apparently forsaken. 
It seemed to imply utter carelessness, if not in- 
justice, on the part of God^s all-ruling providence. 
Nevertheless, the fact remains, 

" Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty 

in power ? 
Their seed is established in their sight with them and their 

offspring before their eyes. 
Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God 

upon them.'' 

He anticipates the answer, that they are reserved 
for the day of destruction, they shall be brought 



94 TEE MAN OF UZ. 

forth in the day of wrath. He replies by denying 
the fact. The wicked often die without dishonor : 

"One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and 

quiet. ... 
The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every 

man shall draw after him. . . . 
How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers 

there remaineth falsehood?^' 

How often it is so even now ! The godly^ gen- 
erous^ kindly man lives a life of toil and sorrow 
and misfortune, while the selfish worldling pros- 
pers by hardness and sharp-dealing. It is certain 
that if success is what we are apt to regard it — 
namely, the acquisition of the good things of this 
world — then honesty is not always' good policy, 
nor is godliness profitable. What then ? Is there 
no such thing as providence? or does providence 
ignore all moral considerations, and govern the 
world according to blind natural law ? Job is not 
willing to go so far as either of these suppositions, 
and it is greatly to the credit of his self-control 
that he is not. A mind less delicately poised than 
was his would almost certainly have fallen into some 
such error as this in its reaction from the theory 
that was used to convict him, and which he sees to 
be inadequate to the facts. But Job is never small ; 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE, 95 

he is weary sometimes^ but never weak ; extreme 
sometimes^ but never absurd. His doubt and dis- 
may in view of what he sees to be a problem too 
great for any easy solution makes him all the more 
impatient with the tedious homilies of his friends 
in defence of their neat but petty doctrines. He 
confesses that he cannot account for the facts him- 
self, but he argues that that is no reason for accept- 
ing a false explanation. Better leave the whole 
question unsolved than to attempt to justify the 
ways of God to man by falsehood. 

'' Will ye speak wickedly for God ? and talk de- 
ceitfully for him V^ There is very delicate sarcasm 
in this question. To put it more coarsely, it amounts 
to saying, " Is God such a client that you, as his 
advocate, must resort to a defence which you know 
is not sincere ? It is surely wiser in such a case to 
confess your ignorance.^^ 

" Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace ! and it should 
be your wisdom.'' 

This is virtually the end of the debate. The 
friends reiterate their views and intensify their 
accusations, trying, as we so often do, to make 
emphatic repetition do the work of sound reason- 
ing and abusive language take the place of facts, 



96 THE MAN OF UZ, 

but there is nothing new advanced in support of 
either side. They all seem to feel, though the 
friends will not confess it, that the problem of 
God's providence is vaster and more difficult of 
solution than they had ever imagined it before. 
Eliphaz answers again at considerable length, 
Bildad very briefly, and Zophar not at all. Then 
Job closes the discussion with a long review. He 
goes over the whole case, looking carefully on all 
sides of it. He is like a prisoner looking for some 
way of escape. His confidence in God's justice is 
absolute, but how this terrible affliction which he 
is suffering is consistent with that justice he cannot 
understand. He seems almost to forget the pres- 
ence of his friends and to be entirely absorbed in 
his efforts to find God. This review of the case 
which we have in chapters 26-31 is in many re- 
spects the most beautiful section of the book. 

He first reviews the evidence of God's omnipo- 
tent sovereignty. He looks out upon the world, 
and in sublimest poetry magnifies the power and 
wisdom of God : 

" Sheol is naked before him, 

And Abaddon hath no covering. 

He stretch eth out the north over empty space, 

And hangeth the earth upon nothing. . . . 

He closeth in the face of his throne, 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 97 

And spreadeth his cloud upon it. . . . 
By his spirit the heavens are garnished ; 
And his hand hath pierced the swift serpent. 
Lo, these are but the outskirts of his ways : 
And how small a whisper do we hear of him ! 
The thunder of his power who can understand V 

Then he turns again to his own experience, as if to 
see whether what he has just said of God^s power 
and wisdom will enable him to understand his own 
case. He repeats with a solemn oath the protest 
of his innocence : 

'^ Till I die I will not put away mine integrity from me. 
My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go ; 
My heart doth not reproach me for any of my days." 

Then he turns to his accusers with a most surpris- 
ing picture of the hopelessness of the godless and 
their certain destruction and disgrace : 

" For what is the hope of the godless, though he get him gain, 
When God taketh away his soul ? . . . 
For God shall hurl at him, and not spare : 
He would fain flee out of his hand. 
Men shall clap their hands at him, 
And shall hiss him out of his place." 

It is very surprising to hear this from Job, for it is 
just what he has seemed to deny heretofore. The 
explanation seems to be that Job is perplexed. He 

7 



98 THE MAN OF UZ. 

does Dot deny and never had denied that ^^the face of 
the Lord is against them that do evil/^ bat he had 
denied that there was any such regularity in the 
dealing of God with men as warranted the conclu- 
sion which his friends had drawn from his affliction. 
He seems to say, " Now here are the facts : God is 
infinitely wise, and absolutely sovereign. He de- 
stroyeth the godless, even as you say. But I am 
destroyed, being innocent, and on this one fact your 
whole theory breaks down, and miserable comforters 
are ye all.'^ He has no doctrine of his own to offer. 
No modern agnostic has felt more deeply nor ex- 
pressed so well the utter inability of man to com- 
prehend his own life or to expound the ways of 
God to man. But this limitation of human under- 
standing, which the agnostic makes the excuse for 
his denial of the possibility of spiritual wisdom, Job 
makes the starting-point of a new departure in the 
search for truth and duty. He is convinced that he 
cannot comprehend God's providence. What then ? 
Shall he deny the possibility of wisdom too great to 
be grasped by human intelligence ? No ; Job rea- 
sons better than this. He says the wisdom of God 
is too vast for him ; even in the works of nature 
about him he sees manifested such wonderful wis- 
dom as he can but feebly admire, how much Jess 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 99 

criticise. He lets the hand of reason fall, and 
reaches up the hand of faith. He ceases to ask 
for reasons, and begins to ask for duty. He has 
reached the point of preferring a command to an 
explanation. This is the highest kind of wisdom, 
and yet it is just this that is most scoffed at by 
ignorant unbelief. Ignorance that is so dense as to 
imagine that it knows everything is most hopeless. 
Ignorance that will not be directed is deepest folly. 
What then shall we call those who demand that the 
divine plans and purposes shall submit to the test 
of human judgment ? Can you get a quart of water 
into a pint cup ? Can the whole great ocean give 
the cup more than it can hold ? It is not a ques- 
tion of giving, but of receiving. So is the revela- 
tion of God to man limited not by his resources, 
but by our capacity. 

Job sought long and honestly for the reason of 
God's strange treatment of him. He wanted to 
know, and why should he not ask and seek and 
ponder? But when he cannot find what he sought, 
he takes what he can find. Like the blind man 
whom Jesus healed on the Sabbath day, when the 
Jews told him that Jesus was a sinner, he answered, 
" Whether he be a sinner, I know not : one thing 
I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.'' So 



100 THE MAN OF UZ, 

Job, failing to find an answer to all his questions, 
falls back on the faith which never wavered. He 
found rest in the blessed assurance that He who 
rules in earth as well as heaven knows the end 
from the beginning and makes no mistakes. Man, 
therefore, cannot go wrong if he will simply obey. 
This is the conclusion to which the careful re- 
view of the whole subject brought him. It is 
henceforth the corner-stone of his faith. His doc- 
trine of providence is not so complete, perhaps, as 
the neat and pretty theory of the three friends, but 
his doctrine of personal duty is clear as crystal : 

" Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; 
And to depart from evil is understanding." 

This simple faith is the pure gold that came out of 
the fire of his affliction, and the poetic confession 
of it is not surpassed in all the literature of the 
world. The inspired words are better than any 
comment. 

" Surely there is a mine for silver, 
And a place for gold which they refine. 
Iron is taken out of the earth, 
And brass is molten out of the stone. 
Man setteth an end to darkness, 
And searcheth out to the furthest bound 
The stones of darkness and of the shadow of death. 



MYSTEEIOUS PROVIDENCE. 101 

He breaketh open a shaft away from where men sojourn ; 

They are forgotten of the foot that passeth by ; 

They hang afar from men, they swing to and fro. 

As for the earth, out of it cometh bread : 

And underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. 

The stones thereof are the place of sapphires, 

And it hath dust of gold. . . . 

He putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock ; 

He overturneth the mountains by the roots. 

He cutteth out channels among the rocks ; 

And his eye seeth every precious thing. 

He bindeth the streams that they trickle not ; 

And the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light. 

But where shall wisdom be found ? 

And where is the place of understanding ? 

Man knoweth not the price thereof : 

Neither is it found in the land of the living. 

The deep saith. It is not in me : 

The sea saith, It is not with me. 

It cannot be gotten for gold, 

Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. 

It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, 

With the precious onyx, or the sapphire. 

Gold and glass cannot equal it : 

Neither shall the exchange thereof be jewels of fine gold. 

No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal : 

Yea, the price of wisdom is above rubies. 

The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it. 

Neither shall it be valued with pure gold. 

Whence then cometh wisdom ? 

And where is the place of understanding ? 



102 THE MAN OF UZ. 

Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, 

And kept close from the fowls of the air. 

Destruction and Death say, 

We have heard a rumor thereof with our ears. 

God understandeth the way thereof, 

And he knoweth the place thereof. 

For he looketh to the ends of the earth, 

And seeth under the whole heaven ; 

To make a weight for the wind ; 

Yea, he meteth out the waters by measure. 

When he made a decree for the rain. 

And a way for the lightning of the thunder : 

Then did he see it and declare it ; 

He established it, yea, and searched it out. 

And unto man he said, 

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; 

And to depart from evil is understanding." 

We cannot understand our relation to this uni- 
verse in which we find ourselves. Some one has 
said, '' We are born as on a step of a great stair- 
way ; there are steps below us, we know not how 
many ; there are steps above us, leading we know 
not whither." But we have the blessed assurance 
that He who sent us hither has a place for us to 
fill, a destiny for us to reach. In God^s great plan 
our life has a meaning and a purpose which it shall 
be our glory to accomplish. No life is insignificant 
that is constantly present to the mind of God. What 



MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE. 103 

dignity it adds to the life we now live to know that 
God " hath ordained the works that we should walk 
in them ^^ ! Go, therefore, to thy work or warfare 
with undaunted soul. 

" Poor vaunt of life indeed, 
Were man but formed to feed 
On joy, to solely seek and feast. 
Such feasting ended, then 
As sure an end to men ; 
Irks care the crop-full bird ? Frets doubt the maw-crammed 
beast? 

" Then welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go. 

Be our joys three parts pain, 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 
Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe ! 

" For thence — a paradox 
Which comforts while it mocks — 
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail : 

What I aspired to be. 

And was not, comforts me : 
A brute I might have been, but would not sink T the scale." 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW. 

" Lo, all these things doth God work 
Twice, yea, thrice, with a man. 
To bring back his soul from the pit." 

Tj^LIHU is a great puzzle to the critics of the 
-^ book of Job. His introduction at the very- 
crisis of the narrative, with a long and somewhat 
tedious discussion of the questions so fully treated 
already, is against all their notions of what the 
author ought to have done. 

It must be confessed that Elihu does seem to 
intrude at a moment when we should have least 
expected him. When we read that " the words of 
Job are ended/^ we naturally expect to hear imme- 
diately, if ever, that "the Lord answered Job,^^ 
and in that answer to find the conclusion of the 
whole matter. We are in an attitude of expect- 
ancy. We feel that neither Job nor the three 
friends have said the last word in the matter. We 
may be ready to admit that the questions of God's 
relation to the world and the connection between 

104 



THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW, 105 

godliness and prosperity are not so simple and clear 
as we had imagined ; but still to leave the whole 
field to the agnostic, to imply that these questions 
are utterly beyond all profitable discussion, seems a 
lame and impotent conclusion. Moreover, we have 
heard an appeal taken from the judgment of man 
to the judgment of God, and we await his answer 
with great interest. Indeed, there is somewhat 
more than an appeal to the supreme court of 
Heaven against the judgment of man. That court 
has virtually been impeached. It has been hinted 
that divine justice is, like human justice, blind. 
Questions have been raised which involve the 
righteousness of Providence, and the Almighty has 
been challenged to answer in his own defence. The 
appeal is audacious, and the interest at this point 
grows intense. 

We are therefore surprised, and perhaps annoyed, 
to hear not the voice of the Lord, but the voice of 
a man break the silence. A young man too, not 
mentioned before, not a party of either part, a 
mere bystander, cries, '' Hearken unto me ; I also 
will show my opinion. ^^ If ever a young man 
took the floor at a disadvantage, Elihu does so. 
Our sense of propriety is ofifended, and we are 
reiidy to find fault on slight occasion. 



106 THE MAN OF UZ. 

He is introduced by the author, and then he 
proceeds to introduce himself with graceful though 
rather profuse apologies. Then, with a good deal 
of assurance for so young and modest a man, he 
reopens the whole case, threshes a good deal of 
the old straw over again, and when done leaves 
us somewhat in doubt as to just wherein he differs 
from those who have spoken before. 

Now, the critics ask, '^ Why is he introduced at 
all? Why is he not mentioned in the prologue? 
Why is he ignored in the conclusion? What is 
the author's attitude toward Elihu's view of the 
matter ?'' These and many other questions have 
been endlessly discussed, but never answered. Let 
us leave them to the learned critics, and pass on 
to hear what the young man has to say. 

The author has introduced him briefly as " Elihu, 
the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of 
Eam.'^ But neither the name nor the genealogy 
gives any clue to the questions just asked concern- 
ing him. The only fact made prominent in his 
introduction is his youth. The author mentions 
it, Elihu refers to it repeatedly, and his whole 
manner proclaims it. His impatience with the 
three friends because they have not been able to 
answer Job, his confidence of his own ability to 



THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW. 107 

answer him, the impetuous rush of his speech, 
the lack of that stately dignity which so prom- 
inently marked the earlier speeches of the others 
and the frequent use of new words and phrases, 
— all seem to mark him as belonging to a later 
generation and a somewhat different school from all 
the others. Now, it seems probable that these 
marks of youth are intentionally used by the 
author to depict a suitable spokesman for a view 
of Job's case, and of providence in general, which 
was regarded by the author as new and to some 
degree in advance of the traditional views set forth 
by the other speakers. Their view was, as we 
have seen, that providence is practically a system 
of rewards and punishments. The righteous pros- 
per, and the wicked are destroyed. This is the law. 
If any case seems unaccountable, it is only appar- 
ently so, for any real exception to this law would 
imply unrighteousness in God. 

Job discards this doctrine of providence, on the 
ground that it does not accord with all the facts. 
The wicked, he says, are very often as prosperous 
as the godly ; even more so. And, admitting that 
the scheme of providence under which we live is 
such as to favor the good and thwart the wicked, 
it is only so in a general way, and by no means 



108 THE MAN OF UZ. 

SO absolute a law as to be made the basis of any 
such conclusions as they had drawn from it. 

He further maintained that the scope of provi- 
dence is so wide, so far beyond our limited horizon, 
that it is not possible for us to have any knowledge 
of the whole that could warrant our interpretation 
of any part. His conclusion is that to us providence 
is inscrutable, a mystery too deep for human intelli- 
gence to fathom. Man must fall back upon the 
fundamental truths of God^s wisdom and power. 
For man, obedience is wisdom. 

*' Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; 
And to depart from evil is understanding. " 

This was Job's doctrine of providence, and a very 
good doctrine it is. But in his stout defence of 
his own integrity he fell into expressions that seem 
to call in question the absolute justice of God in 
afflicting him. He sometimes seems to say very 
plainly, "God has afflicted me without cause.'' 

This is the point at which Elihu attacks him : 
"His wrath was kindled against Job because lie 
justified himself rather than God." But his wrath 
was against the three friends also, "because they 
found no answer, and yet had condemned Job." 

The young man is the champion of neither party. 



THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW. 109 

He does not share the view of the friends^ that the 
affliction of Job is proof of his great wickedness. 
But, on the other hand^ he is scarcely less severe 
in his censure of Job for what he calls his " rebel- 
lion/^ He is shocked at his arrogance in chal- 
lenging the righteousness of God. 

" For Job hath said, I am righteous. 
And God hath taken away my right : 
jS^otwithstanding my right I am accounted a liar ; 
My wound is incurable, though I am without transgression." 

What irreverence this is ! Elihu exclaims. Was 
there ever such arrogance heard before ! 

*' What man is like Job, 
Who drinketh up scorning like water? . . . 
He addeth rebellion unto his sin, 
He clappeth his hands among us." 

This was Elihu's first '' point/^ and it established 
his right to speak. He has something to say that 
has not been said, and which is important. He 
has put his finger on the one unsound spot in Job's 
religious system. He does not accuse Job of hav- 
ing done anything to bring this affliction on him- 
self. He does not assume that his affliction is 
punishment at all, and he censures Job severely 



110 THE MAN OF IJZ. 

for assuming that God is less kind in sending 
trials than in sending pleasures. 

We feel that Elihu is too severe in his censure, 
that he over-states his case in order to make it clear 
that he has a case ; but in the main he is certainly 
right. It is perhaps significant that Job does not 
answer Elihu ; he does not deny this charge. 
Moreover, the Lord seems to imply the same fault 
when he asks (chap. 40 : 8), '' Wilt thou condemn 
me that thou mayest be justified ?^^ Let us ex- 
amine this charge, therefore, and see just what is 
the fault in Job — the only fault the Lord lays to 
his charge. 

Job had said that man^s duty is obedience, his 
highest wisdom is submission to God. In this he 
is clearly right. But there is a vast difference be- 
tween the obedience of the slave, who must, and 
the obedience of the child, who loves and trusts the 
father who commands. There is a difference also 
between the complaining obedience of mere consent 
and the cheerful obedience of enthusiastic service. 
Now, Job's obedience was somewhat of the former 
kind. He submits, but he seems to think that the 
Lord is somewhat under obligation to him for his 
submission. When his wife lost faith and advised 
him to renounce God, he answered with indignation, 



THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW. Ill 

" What ? shall we receive good at the hand of God, 
And shall we not receive evil ? 
In all this did not Job sin with his lips." 

Stilly there was no trace of the thought that this 
was not evil, but good. His attitude of mind has 
a strong suggestion of forgiving God for doing him 
an injury. The thought of affliction being a bless- 
ing had never occurred to him or to his friends. 
This is the thought which the young man Elihu 
brings forward. The author puts it in the mouth 
of the young man because it was in his time a 
novelty. It is so familiar to us that we rarely 
think of its recent origin, but it was not a familiar 
doctrine in the Old Testament. It is true we have 
many texts in the Old Testament that teach the 
value of affliction, such as ^^ Behold, happy is the 
man whom God correcteth f' " Therefore despise 
not thou the chastening of the Almighty f^ and 
"Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O 
Lord, and teachest out of thy law,^^ and many 
others. But in all these the idea is that it is well 
for a man to be punished, that he may learn to do 
right. It is correction that is commended. But 
the thought which Elihu brings out is different 
from this. He suggests that the Lord may, and 
often does, send affliction to men not for what they 



112 THE MAN OF TJZ. 

have done — not as punishment, but as discipline, — 
whereby they are taught through their own expe- 
rience wisdom that cannot be otherwise acquired, 
and developed in beautiful graces w^hich only ad- 
versity and sorrow can bring out. Job even at his 
best seems to have imagined the Lord as keeping a 
book-account with him, and owing him favors so 
long as he was loyal and obedient. Elihu does not 
deny that there is something like this in God^s rela- 
tion to us, but it is an inadequate conception of the 
matter. Providence in his view is not so much 
governmental as educational. God's treatment of 
us is to be judged by the future as well as by the 
past ; by what he has for us to do and to be as well 
as by what we have done and been. 

It is difficult to follow what he says without 
reading into his words more than he certainly 
teaches. He was still far from grasping this doc- 
trine in the fullness of its New-Testament state- 
ment, '' It is for chastening (education) that ye 
endure : God dealeth with you as with sons : for 
what son is there whom his father chasteneth 
(educateth) not?'' Nowhere in the Old Testament 
is this doctrine taught so plainly as it is in the 
New; but Elihu certainly had the essential thought 



THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW. 113 

of it all when he describes how God deals with a 
man to withdraw him from his purpose : 

*' For God speaketh once, 
Yea t\\dce, yet man perceiveth it not. 
In a dream, in a vision of the night, 
When deep sleep falleth upon men, 
In slumberings upon the bed ; 
Then he openeth the ears of men, 
And sealeth their instruction, 
That he mav withdraw man from his purpose, 
And hide pride from man." 

Not only in this way but by other means God 
strives with men for their good^ and seeks to turn 
them away from doing evil which would destroy 
them. He even spares their lives that they may 
learn wisdom and repentance : 

" He keepeth back his soul from the pit. 
And his life from perishing by the sword. 
He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, 
And the multitude of his bones with strong pain. . . , 
Lo, all these things worketh God 
Oftentimes with man, 
To bring back his soul from the pit. 
To be enlightened with the light of the living." 

Such is the young man^s view of God^s dealing 
with men. This^ he seems to say, is the principle 



114 THE MAN OF UZ. 

by which all God's works of providence must be 
studied. 

Elihu DOW proceeds to discuss Job's case in the 
light of this principle. First, he points out the 
utter absurdity of Job's complaint : 

" For he hath said, It profiteth a man nothing 
That he should delight himself with God. . . . 
Thinkest thou this to be thy right, 
Or sayest thou, My righteousness is more than God's, 
That thou sayest, What advantage will it be unto thee ? 
And, What profit shall I have, more than if I had sinned ?" 

Elihu asks, What does God owe you ? You com- 
plain of lack of profit : how much then is God in 
debt to you? 

" If thou be righteous, what givest thou him ? 
Or what receiveth he of thine hand ?" 

He goes on. to show how man's wickedness may be 
a matter of personal concern to men, for they may 
in some way suffer from it ; but one look at the 
heavens is surely enough to convince any one that 
God is infinitely above any power of evil which 
we possess. God's relation to us, then, is not to 
be regarded as any sort of treaty by which we are 
bound to do something for his benefit, while he 
agrees to do certain things for us. He is absolute 



THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW. 115 

sovereign ; he needs nothing. His attitude toward 
us is that of a loving master to his servants. 
Elihu does not reach the idea of a ^^ Father in 
heaven/^ but he comes very close to it. 

This being the relation of God to men, it seems 
necessary to answer Job^s complaint that oppressed 
and afflicted innocence gets no answer to its cry. 
Elihu answers that the mere fact of distress does 
not give any one a claim on God^s help. If they 
turn their back on God in prosperity, why should 
he regard the cry that is the mere groan of pain, 
with neither faith nor repentance in it? 

" They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty. 
But none saith, Where is God my Maker, 
Who giveth songs in the night? . . . 
There they cry, but none giveth answer, 
Because of the pride of evil men. 
Surely God will not hear vanity. 
Neither will the Almighty regard it." 

The thought here is not unlike that in Proverbs, 
where Wisdom crieth, 

" Because I have called and ye refused ; 
I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded ; 
But ye have set at nought all my counsel, 
And would none of my reproof: 
I also will laugh in the day of your calamity ; 



116 THE MAN OF UZ, 

I will mock when your fear cometh ; 

When your fear cometh as a storm, 

And your calamity cometh on as a whirlwind ; 

When distress and anguish come upon you. 

Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer." 

How often this is true of us in some measure ! In 
our prosperity we forget the goodness of God. We 
are so filled and satisfied with the good things of 
the present life that we have no room in our hearts 
for thoughts of God our Maker, w^hose we are by 
creation, and whose laws we are therefore obliged 
to obey. Even when in times of darkness God 
delivers us so that our sorrow is turned to singing 
— ^'giveth songs in the night '^ — we soon forget 
him. 

Many ask, with Job, " Why am I so aflaicted f 
but how few ask in the times of gladness, " Why 
is the Lord so kind V^ Let us learn to say and sing, 

** Ten thousand thousand precious gifts 
My daily thanks employ ; 
Nor is the least a cheerful hearty 
That tastes those gifts with joy." 

Then Elihu goes on from the consideration of 
Job's case in particular to a broader view of the 
whole subject : 

" I will fetch my knowledge from afar." 



THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW, 117 

He now asserts that in this broad view it is un- 
doubtedly true that God does give prosperity to 
the good and does destroy the evil : 

" If they hearken and serve him^ 
They shall spend their days in prosperity, 
And their years in pleasures. 
But if they hearken not, 
They shall perish by the sword." 

Finally^ he exhorts Job to consider the greatness 
of God^ his unsearchable wisdom : 

" Kemember that thou magnify his work, 
Whereof men have sung. . . . 
Behold, God is great, we know him not ; 
The number of his years is unsearchable." 

Then he goes on with another of the sublime 
hymns in which the book abounds : 

THE HYMN OF THE KAIN. 
" For he draweth up the drops of water, 
Which distil in rain from his vapor ; 
Which the skies pour down 
And drop upon man abundantly. 
Yea, can any understand the spreading of the clouds. 
The thunderings of his pavilion? 
Behold, he spreadeth his light around him ; 
And he covereth the bottom of the sea. 
For by these he judgeth the peoples ; 



118 THE MAN OF VZ. 

He giveth meat in abundance. 

He covereth his hands with the lightning, 

And giveth it a charge that it strike the mark. 

The noise thereof telleth concerning him, 

The cattle also concerning the storm that cometh up. 

At this also my heart trembleth, 

And is moved out of its place. 

Hearken ye unto the noise of his voice, 

And the sound that goeth out of his mouth. 

He sendeth it forth under the whole heaven, 

And his lightning unto the ends of the earth. 

After it a voice roareth : 

He thundereth with the voice of his majesty ; 

And he stayeth them not when his voice is heard. 

God thundereth marvelously with his voice ; 

Great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. 

For he saith to the snow. Fall thou on the earth ; 

Likewise to the shower of rain, 

And to the showers of his mighty rain. 

He sealeth up the hand of every man ; 

That all men whom he hath made may know it. 

Then the beasts go into coverts, 

And remain in their dens. 

Out of the chamber of the south cometh the storm : 

And cold out of the north. 

By the breath of God ice is given, 

And the breadth of the waters is straitened. 

Yea, he ladeth the thick cloud with moisture ; 

He spreadeth abroad the cloud of his lightning ; 

And it is turned round about by his guidance, 

That they may do whatsoever he commandeth them 



THE YOUNG MAN'S VIEW, 119 

Upon tlie face of the habitable world : 

Whether it be for correction, or for his land, 

Or for mercy, that he cause it to come. 

Hearken unto this, O Job : 

Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God. 

Dost thou know how God layeth his charge upon them, 

And causeth the lightning of his cloud to shine ? 

Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds. 

The wondrous works of him which is perfect in knowledge ?" 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND, 

" Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind." 

TTERE is a wonderful answer to prayer. But 
all answer to prayer is so wonderful that this 
is perhaps but a little extraordinary. Unusual in 
manner and wonderfully beautiful in expression, it 
may perhaps awaken in us some more adequate 
appreciation of the truth that our God is a prayer- 
hearing God, and that ^' the effectual, fervent prayer 
of a righteous man availeth much/^ That the de- 
sire and petition of a creature like man should at 
all affect the purpose of the all-wise Creator and 
Ruler of the world is surely a marvelous thing, 
not sufficiently regarded. The privilege of prayer, 
of direct and constant access to the very throne of 
God, is as amazing as it is sublime. The pool of 
Bethesda was troubled at certain seasons, and it was 
believed that whosoever first stepped in after the 
troubling of the water was made whole of what- 

120 



UT OF THE WHIRL WIND. 121 

soever disease he had. For this hope a multitude 
of sick^ blind, lame and withered folk lay waiting 
for the moment when they might scramble for the 
first touch of the healing waters. But here is a 
well-spring whence healing and sympathy and 
blessing flow perennially, not for one, but for all 
who come. 

Job had cried to God with an earnest and dis- 
tressful cry. He had called on him to speak on 
his behalf, to vindicate him from the unkind ac- 
cusations of his friends, or else himself accuse him, 
that he might know his fault. 

It was a cry from the depths. It was the cry 
of one ready to perish. It was intense and pitiful. 
Sometimes, indeed, it overstepped the bounds of 
reverence and became a demand. He almost claims 
as his right that God should explain his treatment 
of him, or at least that he should give him a hear- 
ing and let him plead his cause before him. 

*' Though he slay me, yet will I wait for him : 
Nevertheless I will maintain my ways before him. . . . 
Behold now, I have ordered my cause ; 
I know that I am righteous. . . . 
Then call thou, and I will answer ; 
Or let me speak, and answer thou me. 
How many are mine iniquities and sins? 
Make me to know my transgression and my sin." 



122 THE MAN OF VZ, 

This desire to argue our cause with God is very 
natural and very common. In our distress how 
often we demand, as though of right, some explana- 
tion of our suffering ! We cry bitterly, '^ Why am 
I afflicted thus? Why do all these sorrows fall 
on me more than on others ? Must I suffer in the 
dark, endure and know no reason for it ?'^ Job^s 
cry is the cry of all who suffer, more or less dis- 
tinctly uttered. Sometimes it is an impious and 
blasphemous challenge of God^s justice ; sometimes 
it is the sobbing of a child who lovingly obeys, but 
cannot quite keep back the tears of pain and dis- 
appointment ; sometimes it is the almost inarticu- 
late cry of the great masses of mankind who suffer 
and are wretched and degraded. They cry with 
a pitiful cry, as 

" An infant crying in the night, 

An infant crying for the light, 

And with no language but a cry." 

The Lord^s answer to Job is an answer to all 
whose cry is, like his, a cry for light. No prayer 
is disregarded at the throne of Heaven, and no 
honest, faithful petition fails of an answer. These 
answers may be given in ways Ave would not antici- 
pate and by means that look to us both inadequate 



UT OF THE WHIRL WIND. 1 23 

and irrelevant^ but given they always are^ somehow 
and some time. In one of three ways God answers 
honest prayer : 

First, by granting our petitions. This he does 
more often than we sometimes think, for he does 
it in times and ways which we do not observe. 

Second, by changing our desires, so that we cease 
to wish for what we asked, seeing that something 
else is better. The cripple who sat at the beautiful 
gate of the temple and asked an alms of Peter and 
John did not get what he asked for, but when he 
felt his feet and ankle-bones receive strength and 
realized that he was a sound man, how he leaped 
and walked and praised God ! So in some degree 
each of us has probably seen some of his petitions 
refused only to make way for higher gifts. Thus 
it is a cause of thankfulness that God does not 
always grant the things we ask as we expect them 
to be granted. 

But, third, he may, and often does, so lift us up 
above the care and the interests we prayed about 
that we no longer give them a thought. He an- 
swers by "the expulsive power of a new affection.^^ 
It was after this manner that he answered Job. 

When Jehovah speaks. Devotion cries, ^^Hear, 
O heavens, and give ear, O earth. ^^ Doubt and 



124 THE MAN OF UZ, 

Perplexity say, '^ Now we will know the certainty 
of things/^ When we read that the Lord answer- 
ed Job, we expect an answer to the questions so 
warmly debated between him and his friends. We 
feel that they are not yet answered. They have 
raised questions which neither they nor we have 
been able to answer. 

True, w^e were taken behind the scenes in the 
very beginning of the book. We saw the malice 
of Satan accusing Job of selfishness and insincerity ; 
we saw the high commission of Heaven given to 
Satan to afflict Job, But our perplexity is rather 
increased by what we see. Why did God let Satan 
loose on Job ? Why the " perfect and the upright 
man^' should be so afflicted we have received no 
hint. True, also, we have seen some good effects 
produced in Job by his sore trials. We have seen 
in him the heroism of endurance. We have seen 
a great soul warred against by all the powers of 
darkness, yet victorious. '' Perplexed, yet not unto 
despair ; smitten down, yet not destroyed.^^ A noble 
spectacle ! We have heard the young man^s very 
happy suggestions that affliction is not necessarily 
an evil. It may be not even correction, but edu- 
cation ; the admirable means of developing the 
noblest and fairest graces. 



OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND, 125 

But all this gives no answer to the question^ 
" What is the exact relation between godliness and 
prosperity, virtue and happiness ?^^ When we 
hear that the Lord answered, we listen to have our 
questions answered and our doubts removed. This 
is well enough, but not the best way to listen. It 
is well to ask questions of the Lord, but better sim- 
ply to say, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.^^ 
It is well to know all that may be known of God 
and his ways of dealing w4th us, but it is more im- 
portant to know personal duty. When we seek the 
former we are frequently disappointed ; the finite 
cannot comprehend the infinite ; but when we ask 
what is present personal duty we are not often left 
in great perplexity. 

If we come to these chapters expecting to have 
the whole scheme of providence made clear to us, 
we shall be disappointed. The first thing that 
strikes us on reading them is that they do not 
answer the questions that have been so warmly dis- 
cussed in the book. The whole discourse is general. ^ 
It has to do with the wisdom of God infinitely 
transcending the wisdom of man, and the omnip- 
otence of God in contrast with the impotence of 
man. It makes no reference to Job^s case, and 
very little to his character or conduct. Twice only, 



126 THE MAN OF UZ. 

and very briefly, he is addressed directly, and each 
time it is a rebuke. The first is the question, 

" Who is this that darkeneth counsel 
By words without knowledge ?'' 

He is thus called to account for "darkening the 
counseP^ of Jehovah, misinterpreting his works, 
misrepresenting his designs. God's purposes are 
like the clear sky, deep, high, boundless, but serene 
and sublime. Our speculations concerning them 
are earth-born clouds, thick, murky and depress- 
ing. To-day I read an essay* of Mr. Huxley's 
subtile skepticism. It is keen, shrewd, hard to 
answer. But I took up the simple narrative of the 
life of a devoted missionary f of the cross, and the 
contrast was a striking illustration of the difference 
between God's work and man's argument. The 
essay is the logic of a great and well-trained intel- 
lect attempting to prove and disprove certain prop- 
ositions ; the latter is the simple record of a noble 
life and of notable events. The former is full of 
petty difficulties; the latter is full of great won- 
ders. The former is chiefly questioning " how can 
these things be?" the latter is the careful record of 

"^ Nineteenth Century, July, 1890. 

t Kev. John G. Paton of the New Hebrides. 



OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND, 127 

things that are, and are more wonderful than all 
that Mr. Huxley calls in question. The facts of 
providence and grace which are attested by the 
missionary are the wonderful, fathomless sky of 
his eternal purpose ; the questions which perplex 
us about these facts are but the clouds of man^s 
limited apprehension. 

This, I take it, is the relation between Job's 
painful questioning and Jehovah's answer of simple 
fact — great, unquestioned and unc[uestionable facts 
of creation and providence. 

These facts are brought forward with wonderful 
poetic beauty. From a purely literary point of 
view there is no grander poetry in human language 
than this 

CKEATION HYMN. 
" Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 

Declare if thou hast understanding. 

Who determined the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? 

Or who stretched the line upon it ? 

Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened ? 

Or who laid the corner-stone thereof ; 

When the morning stars sang together, 

And all the sons of God shouted for joy? 

Or who shut up the sea with doors, 

When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb ? 

When I made the cloud the garment thereof, 

And thick darkness a swaddling-band for it, 



128 THE MAN OF UZ. 

And prescribed for it my decree, 

And set bars and doors, 

And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further ; 

And here shall thy proud waves be stayed? 

Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began, 

And caused the dayspring to know its place ? . . . 

Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea ? 

Or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep ? 

Have the gates of death been revealed unto thee ? 

Or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death? 

Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth ? 

Declare if thou knowest it all." 

Then the theme of the poem flows on from crea- 
tion to providence, from the making of all things 
by the word of his power to the most holy, wise 
and powerful governing of all creatures and all 
their actions. There is no break in the continuity 
of the poem, for there is none in the work it cele- 
brates. He who creates, sustains. What are the 
"resident forces ^^ of nature but the immanence of 
God's powder? What are the laws of nature but 
the consistent methods of his working ? The wind 
which blows to-day is to us capricious only because 
we do not know, or know imperfectly, the compli- 
cated forces which produce it and direct it. There 
are no "freaks'' of nature, nothing accidental; all 
is cosmos, beautiful order, for all is the work of 



OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND, 129 

the eternal and unchangeable God ; '' in him we 
live and move and have our being/^ The world is 
not governed by law^ but according to law ; that by 
which all things are governed, that which created 
and sustains the forces of nature, is to science the 
great unknown. To this point science brings us, 
and at this point revelation takes up the theme and 
adds, " What therefore ye worship in ignorance, 
this set I forth unto you. The God that made the 
world and all things therein. ^^ He who made, sus- 
tains. He who began, continues. Continuity is 
to-day the most emphatic word of natural science, 
and immanent sovereignty of the unchangeable 
God is the word of revelation. Are not these two 
the same? At all events, the hymn of creation 
passes, without a break, into the 

HYMN OF NATUKE. 
" Where is the way to the dwelling of light, 

And as for darkness, where is the place thereof? . . . 

By what way is the light parted, 

Or the east wind scattered upon the earth ? 

Who hath cleft a channel for the water-flood, 

Or a way for the lightning of the thunder ; 

To cause it to rain on a land where no man is ; 

On the wilderness, wherein there is no man ; 

To satisfy the waste and desolate ground ; 

And to cause the tender grass to spring forth ? 



130 THE MAN OF UZ, 

Hath the rain a father ? 

Or who hath begotten the drops of dew? 

Out of whose womb came the ice ? 

And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? 

Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, 

Or loose the bands of Orion ? 

Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season ? 

Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train ? . . . 

Who hath put wisdom in the dark clouds ? 

Or who hath given understanding to the meteor ? . . . 

Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lioness ? 

Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 

When they couch in their dens. 

And abide in the covert to lie in wait ? 

Who provideth for the raven his food, 

Where his young ones cry unto God, 

And wander for lack of meat ?" 

So the beautiful poem goes on, touching here and 
there the chords of Nature's boundless harmony, 
the wild goats of the rock, and the hinds of the 
open field ; the wild ass, '' whose house I have 
made the wilderness, ... he scorneth the tumult 
of the city ; the wild ox, who cannot be yoked to 
the furrow ;'' the ostrich and the eagle, and espe- 
cially the horse, are cited as wonderful works of 
God. It is no pale sentimental saint who drew 
this picture of the horse. It has the ring of gen- 
uine and enthusiastic admiration : 



OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND, 131 

" Hast thou given the horse his might ? 
Hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane ? 
Hast thou made him to leap as a locust ? 
The glory of his snorting is terrible. 
He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength : 
He goeth out to meet the armed men. 
He mocketh at fear, and is not dismayed ; 
I^^either turneth he back from the sword. 
The quiver rattleth against him, 
The flashing spear and the javelin. 
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage : 
Neither believeth he that it is the voice of the trumpet. 
As oft as the trumpet soundeth he saith. Aha ! 
And he smelleth the battle afar off, 
The thunder of the captains, and the shouting." 

In the midst of this sublime song of Nature the 
Lord addresses Job the second time^ sayings 

" Shall he that cavileth contend with the Almighty ? 
He that argueth with God, let him answer it." 

But Job is done with caviling. He has been 
looking up and out upon the wondrous world of 
God^ and when he is suddenly asked to look at 
hinaself and his case which he had so loudly cried 
out about, he can scarcely see it. 

" Job answered the Lord, and said, Behold, I am 
of small account.^^ This is the effect produced on 
Job by the contemplation of God's power and wig- 



132 THE MAN OF UZ. 

dom as it is revealed in the works of creation and 
providence. The lurking doubt as to God's justice 
is gone for ever from the mind of Job. He has 
no longer any vague, distressing fear that God had 
overlooked him and was doing him injustice. He 
is abashed to drag his petty case into the court 
where the destinies of worlds and solar systems are 
determined. He is ashamed to remember that he 
misdoubted the tender care of Him who feeds the 
raven and satisfies the appetite of the young lion. 
Job is nowhere greater than when he answered, 
" Behold, I am of small account f^ never more 
eloquent than when he said, ^' I lay my hand upon 
my mouth.^^ 

Once more the poet celebrates the wonders of 
the realm of Nature. He sings, in a style pecu- 
liarly Oriental, of the two great monsters of the 
river : '' Behold now behemoth,^ which I made 
with thee,'' and leviathan,t who is " king over all 
the sons of pride." 

Once more Job answers as before : 

" I have uttered that which I understood not ; 
Things too wonderful for me, w^hich I knew not. . . . 
I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear ; 
But now mine eye seeth thee : 

* The hippopotamus. t The crocodile. 



OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND. 133 

Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent 
In dust and ashes.'' 

Thus concludes the most beautiful poem in the 
world. The "perfect and upright man'^ of the 
opening chapter has become the man of an humble 
and contrite heart. The suffering saint who clam- 
ored for a hearing of his case has had his wish^ but 
to our surprise he throws up his hand, sayiug, 
"Behold, I am of small account.^^ How is this? 
What has God said to Job thus to transform him ? 
Nothing, except to call his attention to what he 
could have seen for himself. He explains nothing, 
argues nothing, alters nothing, yet Job is satisfied by 
the wonderful works of creation and providence that 
his God is good and wise, and maketh no mistakes. 
He is penniless and childless and suffering still ; he 
is without hope of relief or prospect of restoration, 
but he is at ease and quiet in spirit, for he feels that 

" Underneath are the everlasting arms." 

The book of Job ends now with a few brief sen- 
tences in prose. These tell us of Job's restoration. 
The first thing restored is the impaired relation 
between him and his three friends. They had been 
very harsh in their judgments and bitter in their 
accusations, and it would be very hard for Job to 



134 THE MAN OF UZ. 

feel the same cordial love for them that he felt be- 
fore. Good friends are the choicest of blessings, 
and a brother offended is not easily won over to 
friendship again. The relations here are somewhat 
strained, and a little irritation is felt in memory of 
the past. See how the Lord prescribes for such 
a case : 

He makes Job the advocate and intercessor for 
his three friends. They are commanded to bring 
a burnt offering for their sin, and Job is asked to 
pray for them. It is an appeal to his generosity ; 
it touches the great heart of Job. He prays for 
them with earnest, honest petition. As he prays 
all bitterness disappears from his own heart. 
The Lord forgives, and peace and kindliness are 
thoroughly restored. 

But this is not all : Job's restoration to pros- 
perity is connected with this prayer for others. 
^^And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when 
he prayed for his friends : and the Lord gave Job 
twice as much as he had before/' 

From grace to grace God leads his saints. The 
perfect and upright man became the hero of patient 
faith ; then humble and reverent ; and at last we 
see him on his knees in intercessory prayer for 
those who had tried his patience as few men are 



OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND, 135 

ever tried. His discipline is ended. The trial of 
his faith is perfect. He rises from his knees to 
be promoted now to greater honor and prosperity. 
He receives of the Lord^s hand double measure. 
All worldly goods are restored two-fold, and sons 
and daughters also, for ten grew up about him to 
comfort his declining years, and ten had gone be- 
fore to meet him in the heavenly home, when, at 
length, he died, ^* being old and full of days.'^ 



THE END. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





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